


Polaris

by Castielslostwings



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe- No Supernatural, Blood and Injury, Canon-typical desecration of corpses for disposal, Castiel is NOT a prostitute, Dark Sam Winchester, Darkchesters, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Dean Winchester Takes Care of Castiel, Drug Dealer Sam, Drug references and use (not Dean/Cas), Dub-Con related to gaslighting, Emotional Manipulation, Explicit Sexual Content, Gang Rape, Gaslighting, Graphic Violence, Graphic and explicit depictions of assault and violence, Hurt Castiel (Supernatural), Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, M/M, Manipulative Dean Winchester, Mentions of Sam and Dean sharing past partners and Castiel (Sam asks but it does not happen), Mentions of drug use (not Dean/Cas), Mentions of sex work, Minor Character Death, Minor Character death by overdose, Minor Suicidal Thoughts, Murder Husbands, Not Dean or Cas or Sam, Rape Recovery, Rape is not between Dean/Cas, Revenge killing, SPN Dark Fic Big Bang 2019, Serial Killer Dean Winchester, Sex Work Positive Cas, Slight sacrilege (Zach is a pastor), Sociopath Dean Winchester, Stalking, Stripper Castiel (Supernatural), Strippers & Strip Clubs, Tags Contain Spoilers, Top Castiel/Bottom Dean Winchester, Top/Bottom Versatile Castiel/Dean Winchester, Torture of rapists, Unsafe Sex, catching feelings, dark happy ending, descriptions of stripping, eventual murder husbands, from here on out - Freeform, including gang rape/non-con of Castiel by others (not Dean), sexual endangerment (tampering with condoms)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-04
Updated: 2019-09-04
Packaged: 2020-09-30 12:09:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 45,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20446940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Castielslostwings/pseuds/Castielslostwings
Summary: Aside from being a stripper, Castiel’s life is fairly boring, and full of routine. But when he’s rescued from a traumatic situation by an unfairly attractive stranger, everything he’s used to is suddenly turned upside down, not all for the better. His would-be rescuer has secrets, but perhaps even more shockingly, Castiel does too. What will happen when they all come spilling out?





	1. Part 1: Polaris

**Author's Note:**

> *peeks out from behind curtain*
> 
> I'm sooo nervous about sharing this! This is unquestionably the darkest thing I've written, but despite the graphic content, it's actually a lot LESS dark than I originally intended, because apparently, I just can't stand them not being in love. *SHRUG* sorry, not sorry. 
> 
> Anywho, I tagged absolutely everything, even if it's a small mention. If you have triggers and still want to read, PLEASE hit me up if you want/need clarification on something. I'm happy to spoil a little or a lot. I'm also going to leave markers on the left side of the screen, just before and after the graphic rape scene, so if you'd like to avoid it, look out for those and skip ahead until you see them again. They look like this:/*****/ and you can CNTRL+F for them if you'd like. Just be aware that the scene picks up in the very *immediate* aftermath, as it's pertinent to the story. Also, a lot of that assault scene is inside Castiel's head, so if you're easily triggered by dissociation, I would avoid. Please take care of yourself! I'm always around on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/caslostwings) or [Tumblr](https://castielslostwings.tumblr.com/) if you want to ask questions before reading.
> 
> A huge thank you to MalMuses & JScribbles for the support during this bang, I had a few moments that were tough, and they were super supportive and caring. Not all dark subject matter is for everyone.
> 
> Thank you to CoinofStone, CRNoble, and especially OliveGray33 for the alpha/beta assistance, Olive really helped tweak the climax and it's so much better for it. <3
> 
> And of course, a HUGE shoutout/thank you to my wonderful artist, Sunny (@blueeyesandpie), who made some amazing pieces and brought stripper!Cas to life in a perfect, gorgeous way. I LOVE HIM. And for hooking me up with Olive in the first place, you two both rule! Please go check out [Sunny's Tumblr](blueeyesandpie.tumblr.com) and her [Art Masterpost](https://blueeyesandpie.tumblr.com/post/187477470345/polaris-by-castielslostwings-i-had-the-great) and give Sunny all the love. An INCREDIBLE piece with Castiel dancing in his "Angel of Thursday" costume appears in Chapter 2, and just look at the details in that banner! Does that neon sign not look exactly like Meg and Cas?! So beautiful. 
> 
> I hope you all enjoy and aren't too scared of me after, lol. Please don't run fleeing in horror if this isn't your jam, I have more stuff on the way soon!
> 
> A brief note on the title: Polaris is the North Star, the one that is often used for navigational purposes as it correlates to our North Pole. Sirius is a Southern Star that is currently moving into position to correlate with the South Pole, and will eventually work the same way (but completely opposite). Magnetic reversal is what happens when the geomagnetic poles switch poles switch polarity. Yes, this is extremely pretentious meta-commentary on the characters' relationships with each other. :-P

_ _

_Castiel _

Castiel’s examining a three-pack of peppers in the produce aisle when he feels it for the first time; eyes boring into the back of his head. The sensation makes his arms goose-pimple and the hair on the back of his neck stand on end, but of course, when he looks around to seek out the source there’s no one paying him even an ounce of attention. He feels ridiculous, sure that his mind is playing some sort of trick on him, because it’s two in the afternoon in a _ grocery _ store, and he’s a six-foot-tall, well-muscled man. Even if someone unsavory _ was _ following him, Castiel’s perfectly capable of taking care of himself. He squares his shoulders and drops the peppers into his basket, going about his business as if everything is normal. _ Everything _ is _ normal, _he insists, and the tugging inside his gut that’s attempting to warn him against trouble ahead gets abruptly dismissed as simple indigestion.

_ Whatever this feeling is, it’ll pass _, Castiel tells himself. He’s sure of it. 

The feeling doesn’t pass. It follows him all throughout the store and beyond, persisting even as he exits out into the broad daylight and crisp spring air. The vibe is _ so _strange and unnerving that by the time Castiel’s carrying his bags through the parking lot, he’s starting to wonder if this is what a mental breakdown feels like. He briefly considers calling Gabriel, but after a few deep breaths underneath the warmth of the midday sun, he’s back to feeling silly about it all and not in the mood to be teased by his older brother. As he sets off towards home, despite the strange feeling still lingering in the air, Castiel finds himself easily distracted. The object of his interest is a beautiful black vehicle parked halfway between the grocery store and the street, a black ‘67 Chevy Impala in apparently perfect condition. Its flawless curves, sparkling chrome, and recently-waxed paint glisten in the sun, a tactile temptation Castiel finds impossible to resist. While he’s not exactly a car guy per se, he’s always had a deep affinity for certain muscle cars, especially when they’re driven by the type of rugged man he prefers to date. 

A quick glance back in the direction he came from shows no such owner in sight _ (unfortunately), _ not that Castiel believes he’s lucky enough to stumble upon a ride _ this _gorgeous and not have it end up belonging to some eighty-year-old pervert. Still, that doesn’t keep him from looking. He peeks inside via the back window and nearly groans when he sees the creamy leather seats in perfect condition and the original stereo intact, unaltered by modern upgrades. A true diamond in the rough, the kind of well-preserved specimen one rarely stumbles upon outside of car shows where they’re hauled in by trailer. 

_ Definitely an eighty-year-old pervert, _ he concludes regretfully. _ Probably drives it to the store once a month and keeps it under a dust cover the rest of the time. _ He lets his free hand drop to drag wistfully over the smooth curve of the car’s rear, and with a last covetous glance, resumes his walk across the lot and down the street to his apartment building. His mood elevates and he decides that the car must have been a good luck charm because the strange feeling of being watched doesn’t follow. 

***

Over the next few weeks, Castiel feels as if he experiences the unnerving sensation of unknown eyes on him with increasing frequency. He starts to suffer the urge to constantly look over his shoulder when he’s in public and he begins to seriously consider seeing a therapist. Because in the end, it _ is _ just that--a feeling. Nothing happens and Castiel never sees anyone out of place or taking an unusual interest in him. It’s not like the same person is turning up in all the places he goes, or as if a specific vehicle is seen lurking outside his home and work. Surely if someone were _ actually _ following him, stalking him, they wouldn’t be able to hide so easily? And why wouldn’t they have tried something by now? The fact that so many times when his hair starts to stand on end and he looks around, not only is no one watching him but actually, no one is even _ there _ at all, _ has _to be a dead giveaway that he’s cracking up. 

Besides, he’s unbelievably accessible as a person. He’s single. He’s a _ stripper. _ If someone wants access to him and to his body, it’s not as if they’d need to resort to stalking him to obtain it. While he considers that line of reasoning, he stubbornly ignores the voice in the back of his head that reminds him of just how many customers want _ more _ than he’s willing to offer. Castiel buries that thought process deep inside his subconscious, using the logic that no one actually _ wants _a stripper in that way, they’re just conditioned to crave the fantasy. All the same, he does start to take a few minor precautions, such as waiting for his friend Meg to get off of work and allowing her to drive him home. That sort of cautious alteration in his day-to-day life seems reasonable, prudent even, instead of continuing to walk the dark alleyways that stretch between the club and his apartment building alone. But overall, life proceeds as normal, and Castiel simply learns to accept that he’s becoming an unreasonably paranoid motherfucker. 

One night, about a month following the appearance of the sensation he’s come to dub as his Ghost Stalker, Castiel heads into work as usual. The late-evening sky isn’t fully dark at this time of year, so he feels more than safe declining rides from Meg. He steps through the heavily tinted glass doors of the club and wrinkles his nose against the wave of stale beer, cigarettes, and sex that hits it. The crowd is a little sparse for a Thursday, Castiel takes notice as soon as he enters _ Heaven & Hell, _ with only a handful of customers dotting the tables and most of them regulars. As far as weekdays go, Thursdays are usually the most popping for business, being that it’s the only weeknight the club does “mixed company.” Tonight, however, the room is nothing of the sort. It _ is _ early though, with over an hour until Castiel’s main stage performance, plenty of time to get some butts in the seats. On his way to the dressing room, he briefly checks the booking schedule and is pleased to see a bachelor party penciled in for tonight. _ Excellent. _Regulars are necessary for survival, but parties bring in the best tips. 

_ Heaven & Hell _ is somewhat unusual for a strip club, and definitely one-of-a-kind for the area, boasting both male and female strippers on alternating nights. The only exceptions are Thursdays and Saturdays when they both share the stages. Saturdays are a lot more straightforward, as far as Castiel’s interests lie; party crowds, events, the predictable girls looking for boys and boys looking for men. Thursdays… Thursdays are _ not _ so predictable. A lot of times that’s when a supposedly straight man will wander into the club under the guise of looking at the girls, but with the clear intention of dipping his toe in non-hetero waters. A bachelor party on a Thursday, and _ here? _ Castiel would bet his night’s earnings that it’s for a closeted or bisexual man marrying a woman. Plausible deniability and all that, not an uncommon sighting in the least, especially when the well-advertised main feature at _ Heaven & Hell _ on Thursdays nights is… well, _ him. _

On every other day of the week Castiel’s a stripping cliche: the firefighter, the cop, the soldier, occasionally a construction worker or a leather daddy, if he’s feeling the urge to change things up. But on Thursdays, he leans hard into the twink persona, a slightly feminized and softened version of his on-stage alter ego that’s _ much _ more likely to put a closeted queer man at ease because, _ it’s all about the client. _ The schtick has turned somewhat ironic since Castiel’s twink days are _ long _ behind him, his thick runner’s thighs combining with the bulk of his well-toned upper body to theoretically preclude even the notion of him pulling off _ small _ and _ innocent, _ but for whatever reason, it works. It works _ so _ well, in fact, that he’s inadvertently become the sugar baby star of this particular day of the week. His boss, Crowley, gleefully posts evocative scrolling marquees outside the club that entice patrons to come and see _ the Angel of Thursday _in a twisted homage to his name… and his costume. 

Once the door closes behind him in the dressing room, Castiel greets the other dancers getting ready politely, but doesn’t attempt to engage them in small talk. Or any talk, for that matter, since they all treat him in kind. It’s not an unexpected welcome by any means, but Castiel’s unbothered. Most of the men are jealous of the extra attention _ (and money) _he receives by being featured every single Thursday and don’t go out of their way to be friendly towards him. On the other hand, the majority of the girls seem nice, but Castiel only interacts with them once or twice a week depending on the schedule. Plus, he’s working during that time, so it’s not the greatest opportunity for friendship building. 

Opening his locker and stripping naked, Castiel folds his clothes neatly and stacks them at the bottom alongside his shoes. He pulls on a pair of shiny, glitter-infused white boyshorts, so tight they leave nothing to the imagination as to what he’s packing, and arranges his junk more comfortably inside them. He winces when his fingers brush tender, just-waxed skin from earlier that day and grabs some aloe cream to apply liberally, sighing with relief when it eases the sting_ . _ As he’s sorting his parts back out again, he can’t help but glance over and see Alfie, a barely-eighteen-year-old newbie struggling in his peripheral vision to operate a pump that’s purpose is to make his dick seem bigger. He cringes as Alfie rolls a cock ring on and stretches it over his balls, taking a moment to thank God or whoever that he was born big enough not to need to torture himself like that.

Although, Castiel supposes if that particular problem were an issue for him, he wouldn’t still be stripping at all. At thirty years old he’s been doing the job for almost twelve years and has built up enough of a reputation and client base that he can work when he wants and take off when he doesn’t. He even goes by his stage name in day to day life now, changing it on his license officially a few years prior. He’d never much felt like a Jimmy, anyway. Point being, Castiel _ likes _ his job, regardless of the societal stigma, and he refuses to kowtow to the idea that sex work isn’t real work or that what he does (and the fact that he enjoys it) is in any way shameful. That penis pump though… that shit looks _ awful _ . No way he would have lasted even a _ month _if he had to torture his dick like that every night. 

As Alfie leaves, Castiel reaches into his locker and pulls out the economy-size bottle of body oil he keeps stocked there. Carting it along, he moves over to check his look so far in one of the big, wall-mounted mirrors. A body that his teenage self wouldn’t recognize stares back at him, bare and smooth and curved in all the right places. He watches his reflection runs its hand over tan skin stretched taut over rock hard abs, shapely pecs, and rounded biceps that don’t even have to flex to show off the ripple of muscle underneath. The cut of razor-sharp hip bones are the only thing that prevents his underwear from lying perfectly flat against his stomach, and the generous curve of his ass blends smoothly into the lean striations of his thighs. 

Castiel can’t help but feel a bit smug as he takes it all in; he _ knows _ he looks good and he’s proud of the work he puts into doing so. Not that letting himself go is an option, since he uses his body to make a living, but still. He oils himself up, using his reflection to keep from missing any hard-to-reach areas before spraying a thin layer of aerosol glitter over his chest for some extra pop. He returns the oil and glitter to his locker before donning a pair of tear-away cream linen pants and a cheap, tight white t-shirt that’s one of three left from a pack of six. He cuts a tiny slit into the side of the t-shirt’s collar before fitting a white silk tie over it, leaving it hanging loose and backward. He slips white converse on his feet, ridiculous, perhaps, but they _ do _ lend themselves well to the twink-angel look. Lastly, he grabs his makeup kit and hair gel and hauls both items over to the countertop equipped with side-lit mirrors to put them on. 

He settles down onto a stool at the end, three away from any of the other dancers, all of whom continue to ignore him anyway. While they’re busy snorting coke and bitching about grab-ass clients, Castiel quietly unloads his bag onto the counter and digs in. He dabs on enough foundation and bronzer so that he isn’t washed out under the lights and moves on to rimming his eyes lightly with black kohl. As he finishes his second eye, the stool next to him is suddenly filled with five-ish feet of tumbling chocolate brown hair, a giant set of breasts, and the _ thinnest _ excuse for a devil’s costume Castiel has _ ever _seen. He spares a sideways glance and a skeptical, pursed-lip for the wearer before returning to artfully smudging his liner in the mirror. 

“There isn’t enough fabric on that thing to even take off,” he observes. “What on earth are you going to do on stage for three full minutes?” 

“Don’t you worry about me, Clarence,” Meg purrs as her reflection in front of them adjusts a wayward false eyelash before shimmying her chest in his direction. “These babies do all the work for me. Besides, everyone knows you’re the one to watch. Can’t imagine anyone is going to bother looking at little old me when you’re dancing right on the other side of the room.” Castiel rolls his eyes but in all honesty, Meg is probably right, and because they _ are _actually friends (the only one Castiel has to speak of), he knows there’s no malice behind her comment. In fact, the two of them have been doing their angel and devil routine for a couple of months now, and it always kills. The act starts off with them dancing together on the main stage and then continues after they break apart to entertain all colors of the spectrum the club attracts at the same time. Consistently, though, Castiel’s side of the room ends up fuller at nearly every performance. Thankfully, for both their friendship and working relationship, Meg isn’t the jealous type, at least not when it comes to him, and Castiel’s a good enough person to split tips with her regardless. He glances over at Meg in time to see her cutting a line of coke on the counter with her debit card before snorting it.

“That stuff could kill you, you know.” 

Meg sniffs and wipes her nose before shrugging. “Nobody gets out of this life alive, studmuffin. Besides, how else am I going to keep up with your power moves on the pole?” 

Castiel sighs. “I don’t have to do the pole bit if it bothers you that much, you know that’s all Crowley’s thing.” Meg raises her eyebrows at him in disbelief and he relents. “Alright, I do have to do the pole bit. Apologies.” He gives up on perfecting his waterline and tucks his supplies back in the bag, exchanging the pen for a pot of silver holographic glitter, ultra eye-catching for under the stage lights.

“You sure do, stud. If you don’t want to be skinned alive, that is.” Meg reaches out and drags her index finger just under his right eye, smoothing out a flaw Castiel hadn’t seen. He smiles gratefully back at her and finishes adding glitter above and around his eyes, gelling his hair quickly before returning his supplies to his locker with Meg hot on his tail. 

The fluffy white wings he wears to complete his ensemble are hanging folded on a hook, their width barely fitting inside the locker. Castiel takes them down carefully, fitting the simple elastic harness snugly over his t-shirt so that it crosses in the front, in between his pecs. Wings secure, all that’s left is the crowning touch, and Castiel lifts it carefully from its home on the top shelf of his locker. It’s a silver woven-metal circlet studded sparsely with crystals and sapphires--a halo, for all intents and purposes. He places it on the crown of his head and Meg moves to help pin it in place without having to be asked. She also grabs his can of glitter and sprays both Castiel’s hair and the wings for even more pop. Anyone getting a lapdance from him tonight will undoubtedly be finding sparkles on their skin for days.

“Thank you,” he says sincerely, locking up and shifting over for a final self-inspection in the full-length mirror. 

“Anytime, Clarence. Lookin’ positively heavenly, makes my meat-suit all dewy. You ready?” Castiel checks the clock above their heads and sure enough, it’s time to get into position backstage. He nods and follows Meg out through the locker room door and down a side hallway that runs past the bank of private rooms and back behind the stage. One set of customer bathrooms are over here as well and as they approach, one of Castiel’s particularly pervy regulars emerges from the men’s side. He leers openly at both of them but only grabs at Castiel’s ass as he passes. Castiel slaps his hand and glares but there’s no time to argue and anyway, it’s not as if Crowley will do anything about it. In fact, knowing Crowley, he’ll probably tell him to stop complaining and to just give the guy what he wants. Castiel’s well aware that his boss handles transactions between some of the strippers and interested clientele that are way below board, but for his part, he’s always stuck to the hard line in the sand that he’s _ not _a hooker. Nothing wrong with that for those who choose it, but it’s not the job Castiel signed on for, not something he’s ever been interested in. 

Meg shoots him a sympathetic look but doesn’t say anything--she knows equally as well as he does what type of place this is and exactly how well Crowley doesn’t take care of his dancers. She squeezes his hand as they take their places behind the curtain, leaning forward to listen as the DJ sets up their cue. When the music starts, they slip through the opening in the fabric together to a smattering of applause and whistles. Castiel puts Crowley and the handsy patrons out of his mind, for the time being, throwing himself wholeheartedly into his familiar routine.

It’s usually easy for him to slip into his stage persona, but today, as soon as he and Meg hit the main stage, the hairs on Castiel’s neck are suddenly standing on end _ again _ . It’s distractingly frustrating since now quite literally everyone in the room _ is _ looking at him, and yet he can’t shake the feeling that someone out there is _ wrong. _ He does his best to focus on the dance, on Meg, on gyrating his hips and running hands over Meg’s body while she grinds back against his groin, but something just doesn’t click the way it usually does. To the dismay of the more logical half of his brain, the paranoid side begins to suspect all over again that his stalker _ is _real, and more importantly, that he’s here tonight. 

_ But that’s crazy, _ Castiel tells himself as he and Meg jump on his pole at the same time, soaring around it in opposite directions, Meg on top. _ I must really be losing it. _

When he hops off and opens his arms to catch Meg in her dismount, he takes the opportunity to scan the crowd. Unfortunately, no one stands out or looks any kind of out of place, especially since _ inappropriate interest _ isn’t exactly an abnormality in a strip club. Meg breaks off from where she’s been grinding on his pelvis again, strutting confidently across the stage to her own pole. Castiel undulates his torso and drags hands through his hair, fucking it up the way he knows makes him look like he’s just been bent over with someone else’s hands in it. A quick scan of the audience tells him that whatever _ off _he’s feeling tonight, the customers are having no such issue buying what he’s selling. 

When he sees that Meg’s in place, Castiel tips his head in an established signal, the two of them breaking out a short synchronized dance that involves a lot of pelvic thrusting and sliding hands down inner thighs. It’s a little cliche for Castiel’s taste, but it’s Meg’s style and the dudes in the front row below seem to enjoy seeing him spread his legs, even if there are still pants covering them. 

After that, their routines diverge and each of them starts to do their own thing. Castiel launches into his actual strip routine by ripping his t-shirt starting at the collar, seductively pulling it off of his body piece by piece. It was coming up with this stroke of genius that allowed him to wear the shirt _ and _ the wings, resulting in the _ Angel of Thursday _ persona Crowley loves so much. Castiel has to admit, it _ is _ one of his better routines. He slides the pieces of ripped shirt underneath the harness straps and tosses them to the crowd; they’re trash anyway. The seating area has filled out some since he came in, an observation he’s grateful for not only related to the inevitable increase in tips, but also his ability to avoid tossing shirt scraps to the butt-grabber or any other customers that already have a tendency of getting too familiar with him. As he squints through the harsh stage lighting to watch one of the guys who caught a scrap lift it to his nose and sniff deeply, he fights the urge to make a face. He definitely doesn’t need the nightmares that would come along with imagining one of the _ actual _creepers cuddling his shredded shirt to sleep at night, or worse. 

After his top is completely off, it’s time to mount the pole for the most strenuous part of his routine. The amount of strength these moves (_ and _ maintaining a somewhat sexy facial expression while he does them) take requires major focus. Luckily, the headspace he slips into to do so finally creates the distraction he needs to also block out the weird, crawling feeling of those particular eyes focused on him in favor of doing his work. Since his chest is bare and that’s the most skin he’s showing right now, he starts with the human flag--a horizontal mount that’s done by grabbing the pole with both hands slightly wider than shoulder-width apart and pulling his entire body into the air until it’s parallel to the ground. The move makes the muscles in his chest, back, and arms flex and bulge attractively, rounded and shining with oil underneath the lights. It’s physically impressive, far more so than this crowd probably appreciates, but the real show stoppers are always when he softens and goes into the more traditional spins and poses that the girls favor. 

At the same time, though, Castiel _ has _ seen a picture of him doing the human flag, shirtless and with the wings on, and as far as he’s concerned, it’s stunning. More importantly, it’s _ hot. _ When he holds the pose in the air, he _ always _gets a wave of dollar bills thrown down at his proverbial feet, and today is no exception.

The cool steel of the pole creates friction against the pads of his hands as he dips from the flag into an arched full moon and then flips gracefully into skater pose to give his arms a break, exaggerating the lean back as his ankles lock around the metal to do the lion’s share of the work. From this far up above the crowd, the lights wash out the details of the audience, turning them into a sea of faceless, blurry gawkers. They all look the same to Castiel, but the feeling of being _ seen _ where he’s usually only _ watched _persists. After a few more simple tricks and some sensual pelvic gyrations against the pole, he dismounts with a sultry spin, landing on the toes of only one foot and launching immediately into a back walkover that precedes the final part of his striptease. 

The crowd cheers and catcalls when his pants are ripped away, getting louder and raunchier as he crawls on all fours to the edge of the stage. Naked except for his sparkly white boyshorts, shoes, wings, tie, and circlet, Castiel feels energized and _ alive. _ He gets off on all these men looking at him and _ wanting him, _ and it feels _ good. _It’s a power trip like no other to have people hand you money simply because they enjoy the way you look, the way your body moves. The bachelor party he’d noted in the book earlier is dead center of the main stage now, and Castiel picks out the groom easily, crawling seductively over to them and proceeding to dance on his knees right in the groom’s face.

This is Castiel’s wheelhouse, and the man responds accordingly, gazing up at him starry-eyed and awkwardly moving to adjust the fabric stretched over his crotch. _ Bingo. _Castiel runs hands over his own bare torso, up his neck and face and into his hair again, making eye contact with the man as he bites his lip and lets his hands drift back down his stomach to his groin. His fingers drift at the edge of his little shorts, tugging them down just enough to really tease while letting his fingers skate over the line of his cock on the outside. It’s visibly on its way to filling out, and that part is no act. Castiel winks at the man before squeezing his package through the cloth, tossing his head and shoulders back and thrusting his hips in the approximation of an orgasm. He surfaces with a smile and turns around, shaking his ass in the man’s face as the song threatens to come to an end.

As the last few notes trickle out, Castiel works the back of his tiny shorts down, revealing his bare ass to a chorus of encouragement and several lewd comments. He tips his head back over his shoulder and nods to the groom. 

“Smack it,” he encourages, a very _ un- _ holy smirk playing across his lips. The man looks positively gleeful and wastes no time giving his ass a weak little tap. “Oh _ please, _ ” Castiel chastises, spreading his knees and putting his hands down on the floor in front of him. “I said, _ smack _ it. Hard.” This time, the guy doesn’t hold back, hauling back and connecting the flat of his palm with the meat of Castiel’s ass cheek, undoubtedly leaving behind a bright red handprint. He moans exaggeratedly and rocks back on his heels to stand and take a bow as his audience claps and throws tips at his feet. After collecting all his money _ (including a fucking $50 bill from the groom) _ he drops to one knee and addresses the bachelor party, careful to keep his thighs apart and his tone flirty. 

“Who’s buying our boy a lap dance? Since it’s a special occasion, I could _ perhaps _ flex the ‘no-touching’ rule, just for you.” He winks again and the groom blushes, adorably. Castiel’s just feeling thankful that he’s scored a decent looking fish to reel in tonight. He has no actual intentions of _ really _ breaking the rules, but he’s found that allowing men to put their hands on his hips--or to touch his biceps, or spank his ass, or whatever other reasonably harmless touch--almost always results in at least a 50% bigger tip. 

_ Totally worth it. _

So as not to seem too pushy, he stands and tells the group he’ll check back in shortly, exiting the stage and following a now topless Meg to the locker room where he stows the clothes he’d ripped off and tucks his cash inside a lockbox at the bottom of his locker. Probably an excessive precaution, but Castiel knows his co-workers aren’t his biggest fans and he’s not about to take any chances. He and Meg both move quickly so that they can get out onto the floor before their audience can be distracted by the next dance. Not always the most socially adept person, Castiel likes this part of his job a little less, but making rounds and flirting are crucial follow-ups to dancing if you want to score extra tips from club-goers who enjoyed your number.

“Almost dropped me on that dismount, Clarence,” Meg gripes good-naturedly from across the room, pulling her bra back on and dabbing the sweat from her face. She checks her look in the mirror before chucking her hand towel in the laundry bin and joining him at his locker. “C’mon, move that tight ass before they forget what it looks like.” 

“As if,” Castiel snorts. “Perhaps you have that problem but _ these,” _he rolls his hips and gestures down his body, “are curves people remember. We can practice the move on Saturday before opening if you like.” 

“You’re such an asshole. I’d _ like _to not be dropped on my head.” 

“People love my asshole,” Castiel replies with a shrug, locking the box and then the door with practiced ease. He offers his arm to Meg. “Shall we?”

“Oh, _ now _you’re a gentleman.” 

“Shame there’s no lady around to appreciate it.” 

***

Castiel works his magic on the surprisingly relaxed Thursday crowd, flirting and touching innocently, really leaning into the helpless, sweet little twink persona, though how any of these men can look past his stature to get into it is beyond his understanding. Wave a nice ass and a little glitter in some of these dude’s faces and you could probably be half-centaur for all they care. Anything goes, just so long as they can imagine themselves bending you over the nearest flat surface. Whatever the reason, people are buying what he’s selling left and right. He doles out a couple of private dances and sits on a few laps, laughing and stealing shots right out from under the customers’ noses. It’s a fairly standard night until one of his more pushy regulars decides to get a little bold. 

Oblivious to his surroundings, Castiel’s bent over with his elbows propped on a high-top chatting up a pair of brothers, one gay and one curious, that are out celebrating a birthday. They’re friendly and kind, and exactly the kind of customer Castiel prefers. That is to say, attractive, but slightly awkward and unsure because they _ don’t _do this sort of thing often. Not to mention the fact that they’re loaded down with wads of bills at the ready, and no qualms about parting with them. Castiel’s working up to flashing the goods, knowing he’ll inevitably get a huge tip out of it, when he feels a hand shove its way down into his underwear, its middle finger managing to graze his hole. Instantly, his body goes tense, and he struggles against the innate impulse to lay the man touching him out cold.

The prettier of the brothers’ face goes stormy when he realizes what’s happening, and he’s out of his seat like lightning. Half a lifetime of dealing with pricks like this make Castiel faster, though, and he’s whipping around to put the asshole in a chokehold before deftly swinging his leg to kick the man’s knees out from under him, taking him swiftly to the floor. Castiel straddles the guy to keep him down and recognizes his furious face immediately. It’s Zach Adler, a terminal prick who’s propositioned him more times than Castiel cares to count. He tightens his grip on Adler’s throat and glares, but the two of them aren’t even on the floor for a full fifteen seconds before Castiel hears a throat-clearing somewhere above him. He looks up to see Crowley staring down at him in obvious displeasure.

“That’s quite enough, Feathers,” he says, and it’s clear that his words aren’t a suggestion. Just as Castiel expected, Crowley doesn’t so much as bat an eye at Adler’s behavior. In fact, he apologizes for Castiel, and after extending the geriatric groper a hand up, offers to comp him a couple of drinks “for his troubles”. He puts an arm around Adler’s shoulders and moves to lead him away to the bar when Castiel’s would-be savior intervenes.

“Listen, my brother and I were right here, we saw the whole thing,” the pretty gay brother attempts to tell Crowley. “Cas here was just defending himself. That dude’s a grade-A creep. If I were you, I’d toss him out on his ass and give your boy here a raise for showing so much restraint. Someone touched me like that, I guarantee I would have taken his head clean off, no questions asked.” Castiel’s head turns sharply to take in his apparent Knight in Shining Armor and gets a wink in return. The man _ is _very attractive, more so in the brighter light he’s stepped into than the shadows of the table he’s been sitting at, and he’s just Castiel’s type. Light brown hair, freckles across the bridge of his nose, gorgeous green eyes that flash in the strobe lights. His body’s nothing to scoff at either, and Castiel would certainly know, he sees plenty of them. Castiel bites the corner of his lip before turning back to Crowley, who looks neither amused nor interested.

“Yes, well, I think you’ll find that you are not, in fact, me,” he replies coolly. “And no one asked for you to weigh in.” The smarmy bastard takes Adler by the arm and resumes leading him over to the bar, undoubtedly to trade observations on how much of a stupid whore Castiel is and to drown their sorrows over the fact that he won’t fuck them in whiskey. Castiel rolls his eyes and glances over at Gay Brother, who’s shaking his head in disgust as he sits back down. 

“The fuck you doing working here, Cas? You’re hot as hell, you could do a lot better than that asshole.” Gay brother looks genuinely irritated, and Castiel has to fight down the wave of surprise that a customer actually gives a shit how he feels and what his life is like.

“It’s not so bad,” he finally replies after a pause. “If I tried to start over elsewhere I’d be giving up my seniority and the regular hours I’ve worked hard to earn here. Although,” he pauses and squints, briefly contemplating the likelihood that Crowley will actually punish him for taking down Adler and deciding that if anything, he’ll _ probably _ just dock his pay to compensate for the drinks. “Those do depend on his temperament.” He’s about to launch back into his pitch to give the boys a two-for-one private dance because hell, the pretty one _ did _try to help, when he feels a light touch at his elbow. Castiel turns to find that it’s one of the men from the bachelor party. His shirt says “Groom’s bitch,” and he’s holding a thick wad of cash.

“That private dance offer still on the table, sexy?” The man asks his question with the glazed expression and lazy smile of a guy who’s _ just _ crossed over from tipsy to _ drunk _ . “Mick thought you throwing down with that dude was really fuckin’ hot.” Castiel raises his eyebrows and finds it hard to bite back his smile. _ At least that piece of shit was good for something. _

“Of course.” He accepts, taking the wad of cash and instructing the man to move the entire bachelor party to one of the numbered private spaces by the bathrooms. When he turns back to the brothers, the pretty one actually looks a little disappointed. “I’ll be here until midnight,” he assures him with a soft smile. “I’d really enjoy it if we spent some time together later.” It’s definitely a line and the man knows it, but at the same time, Castiel’s not lying, either. There’s something about this guy that he can’t _ quite _ put his finger on, but he feels inexplicably drawn to him. Perhaps it’s simply because he hasn’t been laid in a while, but there’s a tugging insistence at the back of Castiel’s mind insisting that it’s _ more. _ Now isn’t the time to figure it out though, he’s at work and he has a job to do. He touches the man’s shoulder before heading off towards the back rooms, and for the first time since that day at the supermarket, feeling eyes on the back of his head as he walks away feels _ good. _

Even a rumble of complaints from some of the club’s regulars as he makes his way through the bar towards the private rooms doesn’t bring him down. Whereas normally he’d bristle and be throwing his guard up at words like, _ “cocktease,” _ and a handful of other things, all implying that _ he’s _the one doing something wrong by drawing the line at fucking for money, today it all rolls smoothly off his back. He does make a mental note to see if Meg can drive him home later, just in case one of the complainers gets a wild hair up their ass. But other than that, Castiel promptly shoves those unpleasant thoughts and words as far back in his mind as they’ll go. Pretty gay brother is still watching when he glances back as he rounds the corner.

*** 

Unfortunately for Castiel, and maybe for attractive gay brother, the bachelor party keeps him busy in the private room for the rest of his shift. His wallet certainly isn’t complaining though, as even after he pays out the house and Meg, his count tells him he’s taking home several hundred more than an average Thursday usually nets. It’s midnight when the private dances run out and last call isn’t for another couple of hours, but Castiel rarely closes anymore. He’ll make an exception for the occasional weekend night when he’s already there and the money’s too easy to pass up, but that’s a rarity these days. There _ was _a time that deciding to stay late and seek green-eyes out would be a foregone conclusion, though. He’d flirt, sit on his lap for a while and pretend he wasn’t doing it because he’s lonely as fuck. But Castiel’s been around the block one too many times to let the empty promise of a pretty face and a kind word sway him from his waiting Lean Cuisine and his comfortable bed, not anymore.

Back in the locker room once again, Castiel contemplates jumping in the shower before he heads out but eventually decides against it. However gross, he prefers to deal with the oily slickness of his skin for another half hour or so if that means he can enjoy the luxury of his own private shower and space. He kicks the white converse off and hangs up his wings and tie before pulling the t-shirt he arrived in over his head. His jeans go on over the sparkly white boyshorts, too lazy to change back into his boring boxer briefs, and the shorts need to be washed anyway. He shoves the rest of his sweaty and oily costume into a canvas bag to take home for laundering and tugs on the workboots he favors offstage. Crowley contracts with a laundry service that takes care of linens and costumes if a dancer so chooses, but Castiel’s dumped a lot of money into his wardrobe and prefers to make sure the items are cared for appropriately himself. 

He stands around for a minute or two wondering where Meg is before thinking to check the schedule. Running his finger down the paper taped to the wall, Castiel realizes with a sinking feeling that she’s been scheduled off early tonight. She must have left while he was still in with the party. _ Damn it, _ he thinks, but ultimately decides that he’s being overly paranoid about walking home alone and pulls himself together. _ No one is after you, _ he reminds himself. _ Outside this club, no one even cares that you exist. _

Before he leaves, Castiel does make sure to shove his money down deep inside the laundry bag, because he _ is _ going to be passing through several sketchy alleyways in an already shitty neighborhood in the dark, and that’s just common sense. It’s warm out, so he forgoes his jacket, shoving it inside the laundry bag as well. He kicks himself for not bringing his taser, but most times he feels like a total asshole carrying it because again, _ no one cares _ . And even if they did, he’s over six feet tall and plenty stacked, he shouldn’t _ need _a stun gun to feel safe. 

Shaking those thoughts off, Castiel exits the locker room and makes his way past the remaining customers to the front door of the club. He spots Crowley at the far end of the bar and instantly recognizes the way his shoulders straighten and square in his direction. Crowley clearly wants a word and Castiel is _ not _in the fucking mood. He beelines for the tinted glass that spells freedom and manages to burst out into the tepid, clean night air without being stopped. He sighs with relief and quickens his steps, glancing back to see if Crowley’s following and not paying attention at all to where he’s headed when he rounds the side of the building. 

As he smiles and turns his head to look forward again, pleased that he’s escaped Crowley’s berating (at least for the night), Castiel finds himself drawing up short to keep from running straight into the chest of a man planted directly in his path. That alone doesn’t throw up warning flags for him right away, this side of the building has an emergency exit that’s not alarmed, and people frequently take advantage of that to step out and grab some fresh air. A lot of Castiel’s fellow dancers seem to favor using their breaks to gather at the old picnic table that’s shoved up against the wall, or fucking their clients outside where Crowley’s less likely to catch them and take a cut. Castiel happens to know that the alley also sees its fair share of couples who came together and couldn’t keep it in their pants until they got home, but he’s seen a fair number of strippers on their knees out here too. Either way, a _ lot _of the occupants of the club seem to enjoy taking advantage of the fact that the space can’t be seen from the front of the club or the street. Point being, it’s not out of the ordinary for anyone at all to be lurking in these particular shadows. 

“Apologies,” Castiel murmurs, not bothering to look closely enough to identify the shadowed man as he attempts to sidestep him and continue on his way. It’s only then that he sees several more men spilling out the side door behind the first, and they all have one thing in common. Well, two, considering that they all share the distinction of being significantly intoxicated. As Castiel realizes that he couldn’t put together a _worse, _more belligerent and disrespectful group of regular customers if he had literally hand-picked them, the group is already closing ranks around him. He turns to run and finds himself face-to-face with the chest he just ran into, and with not a small amount of rising horror realizes that it belongs to Zachariah Adler. 

“Shit,” he mutters, looking between Adler’s smarmy grin and the four teeth-sucking, booze-soaked stumbling nightmares at his back. He grits his teeth and glares, refusing to back down or appear weak, but inside, his heart is in his throat. “What do you want, Zachariah?”

But Adler just grins and signals the other four with a twist of his hand, all of whom surge forward as if they’ve been waiting for their cue. It dawns on Castiel far too late that they probably had been. 

_ This is coordinated, _he thinks, before turning and throwing every ounce of his strength into fighting them off. 

_ Focus, Castiel. _

/*****/

He breathes deeply as he swings, relying on his breath and stamina to outlast the meatheaded group’s clumsy advances. The only advantage he really has is that he’s perfectly clear-headed and the entire lot of them are the better part of three sheets to the wind. Thanks to that, he manages to land several solid hits; connecting his fist with noses, his elbows with fleshy stomachs, knees to groins and the steel toe of his boot to whatever dares to get close enough. In the end, though, sheer numbers win out and Castiel finds himself being forced to the ground, a boot pressed painfully between his shoulder blades as his cheek scrapes along the cool concrete. The ground is still slightly damp from the rain they’d had earlier, and the moisture feels clammy where it seeps into his clothes. Despite being pinned now, like an insect to a board, Castiel continues to struggle. His breaths come faster as the gravity of his predicament really starts to sink in. He’s fighting to escape, fighting for his _ life _ and his body, while they’re _ all _working as a team to force him into submission. He groans softly as he realizes that nothing about this is going to end well. 

With the boot between his shoulder blades preventing him from so much as raising up even an inch, Castiel closes his eyes and takes stock of his body and limbs. Beyond the uncomfortable pressure of being held down at his chest and legs, his nose is clearly bleeding, the copper tang of it dripping thick down the back of his throat. His right eye feels sore, and he’s relatively certain it took a direct hit, though his socket probably isn’t broken since his lid doesn’t seem to be swelling up. Castiel’s stomach throbs where someone had socked him the sucker-punch that finally gave the group the leverage they needed to shove him to the ground, and he swallows against the feel of rising bile. He shifts uncomfortably, sensing shoes pressing against his hips from both sides as thin plastic cinches around his wrists, and _fuck._ _Zip ties, _he realizes, remembering that they’re _all over_ the fucking club because Crowley has a _thing _for bondage and dances that contain it.

_For fuck’s sake, _Castiel fumes internally. He’s going to die because his boss has a fucking kink. He tests the bond immediately, but whoever secured it must know what they’re doing. He guesses the tie was probably laced in a figure eight instead of simply wrapping the plastic around, and he’s been tied up enough times to know that no way in hell is he going to be able to break out of that kind of bond. 

His mouth thick and filling with fluids, Castiel spits a puddle of blood and saliva out onto the ground next to his face as the pair of legs that were blocking his view steps aside. His spirits lift momentarily when he clocks Crowley, standing with his hands in his pockets at the far side of the building, where just minutes ago Castiel had made the turn to come down here. He’s too far away and it’s too dark for Castiel to be able to read any expression he might have on his face, but he certainly doesn’t appear in any rush to help. 

“Crowley,” he rasps, as loudly as he can with a mouth full of blood and his chest unable to expand fully against the pavement. “Please,” he calls out, hating himself for begging but nowhere near ready to possibly _die_, especially not like this, face down and helpless. 

The men around him go still, seemingly waiting with bated breath to see what the proprietor of the club’s next move is going to be, but the more seconds that tick away, the more Castiel’s hope starts to dwindle. He shifts against the pavement, attempting to arch his back and in response, the heel pressing down on it digs in more firmly. The pain is sharp and unexpected, and Castiel can’t help but cry out. He blinks away the unbidden wetness clouding his eyes just in time to see Crowley turn and walk away without saying one single word.

_ That motherfucker. _

“_ Please _ _!_” Castiel calls after him as loud as can manage, blood spraying and making him sputter as Zachariah crouches at his side, a white handkerchief in his hand. 

“There, there, poor, sweet Castiel,” he croons condescendingly, dabbing at the blood around Castiel’s nose and mouth softly. “I have to admit, Crowley had me a little worried there. Never good when Daddy comes home early to find the kiddos throwing a party he didn’t give permission for.” He laughs and the sound reminds Castiel of a cliche supervillain’s right before he hits the big red button to nuke the planet. 

_ Where’s my fucking Superman, swooping in to save the day at the very last second? _

“But it looks like Daddy doesn’t mind us throwing a party after all,” Zachariah continues gleefully. “So what do you say, _ Cas? _Gonna play nice and give these boys what they’re after, or are we going to have to get rough with you?” 

Castiel coughs and clears his throat before nodding weakly and whispering words that don’t quite make it to Zachariah’s ears. Just as Castiel was hoping, the smarmy bastard lets a knee drop to the ground so that he can lean closer.

“What’s that, kiddo?” Castiel swallows hard and wets his lips with his tongue, parting them and exhaling without speaking. His tormentor leans closer still.

Castiel gathers the fluids in his mouth and tilts his face up to spit as hard as he can, a wad of blood and saliva landing squarely in the middle of Zach’s cheek, dots of red flecking the skin all over the side of his face as the majority of it slides down towards his neck. He sits stunned and blinking for a tense moment before hauling back and slapping Castiel so hard across the face that his head bounces off the pavement. 

“Playtime is over,” he snarls, standing and nodding to the men holding Castiel down. “Strip him,” he orders, before kicking Castiel in his exposed flank and leaning down just far enough to make eye contact with him again. “You shouldn’t have acted like such a cocktease, Castiel. Nothing is going to happen here that you didn’t bring on yourself, you little slut.” 

Before he can reply, Castiel finds himself yanked unceremoniously up onto his knees by rough hands on his biceps. The cold steel of a knife runs along the side of his neck as his shirt is cut at the collar, just like he’d done to his costume earlier before going on stage. Despite the stony-faced glare that he’s doing his best to maintain and his earlier bravado with Zachariah, Castiel’s _ scared. _A little whimper slips out from between his lips as the group’s sinister intentions solidify in his mind. He shivers involuntarily as the sides of his shirt are ripped from top to bottom, the pieces falling to the ground and leaving him bare from the waist up. Even with his hands tied and his knowledge that the binding is secure, he still makes one last valiant effort at wriggling away and standing up, but he’s quickly subdued and shoved back down as the men laugh. 

Castiel stares at the ground, his vision blurring with tears again as the pressure of a hand fisted in his hair makes him realize that he’s still wearing the circlet, his halo an even worse mockery of an angel now. 

Swallowing against the lump in his throat, Castiel licks his lips and sucks in a deep breath before making the decision that the only recourse he has left is his voice. “Oh, God… _ HELP! Someone help me! _ ” He screams, forcefully and at the top of his lungs, but his valiant efforts are swiftly stifled by the same handkerchief Zachariah had been using to faux-tend to his bleeding. The cotton tastes like iron and stale mothballs when it’s crammed inside his mouth, and Castiel’s noises are abruptly all but silenced. He moans as it occurs to him that he’s probably been given the ability to be _ just _loud enough that these assholes can still hear him cry. 

_ Don’t fucking cry, _ he tells himself firmly. _ Don’t give them the damn satisfaction. _

Castiel lifts his face, his eyes tracking the length of the dirty alley in vain hope, but no one comes running, no one comes at all. Zachariah’s smug face fills his vision again, wiped clean from where he’d defiled it, and he chuckles. Castiel wants to vomit.

“God has left the building,” he says and motions _ up _with his hands to the other men. 

Castiel’s dragged to his feet but he doesn’t make it easy, going limp and forcing them to scramble and stagger just to keep him from slumping back to the ground. 

“The table,” Zachariah barks, and he’s being dragged forward, thrown down onto his back roughly on top of the rotting wood. Castiel’s shoulders protest as his bound hands force them together uncomfortably, his hips already raised where they rest on his wrists. If Castiel were the kind of man who prayed, this is absolutely when he would start,_ at least _ in the hopes that they weren’t planning on fucking him like this, since if they do, he imagines his entire upper back will be nothing but splinters after. But once again, Castiel finds himself unlucky. He grimaces as the men’s jostling of his hips causes slivers of old wood to poke and catch painfully on his skin. To distract himself, he stares up at the night sky, devoid of stars thanks to the city’s ambient light, and does his best to create his own constellations and imagine where they’d go. Distantly, he feels his jeans being pulled down his legs, boots and socks being removed, the former hitting the ground with two distinctive heavy thuds. He hears the men talking and laughing, processes something about _ pretty white panties _as their fingers roam wildly over all parts of his exposed skin while he tries hard to block every bit of it out. 

In twelve years of exotic dancing, Castiel’s _ never _had a customer, not even the dirtiest, most rabid ones, attempt something like this--never mind five at the same time. It’s so incongruous with his own experiences as a stripper that he almost feels as if he’s having an out of body experience now. 

_ Yes, that’s what this is, _ he decides, almost deliriously. _ This is happening to someone else, not me. I’m not really here. I’m not here. _

There’s some sort of argument happening somewhere over his head regarding whether to leave his underwear on or off, and Castiel’s head lolls listlessly to the side as whoever was arguing for _ off _apparently wins and they’re ripped away. Some part of him recognizes that he’s now completely naked in an alley outside the place he works, about to be violated in god knows how many ways by more men than he’s ever even slept with in his entire life, all at the same time. Another part of him is still staring doggedly at the sky, connecting the dots to create a bumblebee amongst the invisible stars. 

But it’s hard for him to stay in that dissociated headspace when Zachariah steps boldly between his legs, fondling his soft cock and sighing in disappointment.

“This won’t do,” Castiel thinks he hears, and then Zachariah’s gone, replaced with a head of blonde hair he doesn’t recognize tonguing at his balls and sucking his cock down with surprising enthusiasm. And while it’s the last thing he wants to do, Castiel’s helpless to stop his body from responding and getting hard, the suction and wet heat provoking an automatic response that he’s fully aware is the fault of simple biology and nothing resembling actual interest. But then suddenly the wet heat is gone, replaced by the painful pinch of what feels like a vice around the base of his cock.

“Elastic band,” Zachariah smirks, stepping back into Castiel’s line of sight. “Learned that trick from your friend Alfie last week.” Castiel’s too disengaged and distressed about his own situation to dwell on what that remark might mean for Alfie at the current moment, but he’s nothing if not a stubborn bastard and he files the tidbit away for later. In the meantime, his tongue pushes insistently against the cotton in his mouth, a weak attempt to dislodge it that unsurprisingly ends with no success. The gag stays, though a trail of spit manages to leak from the corner of his mouth and track down his cheek to pool in the shell of his ear. It feels itchy and annoying, and Castiel muses on what a strange thing that is to focus on at a time like this. 

His focus is soon pulled though, by the sound of Zachariah’s zipper opening. He kicks out against the hands holding his legs, struggling to dig his heels into the table and push away but the hands tighten and he’s held down firmly on both sides.

_ Focus on the stars _. The hazy black of the sky gives way the longer he stares, the more he slips into a space where nothing can touch him, where Zachariah’s fingers pushing at his hole and his hard dick nudging them aside, the discomfort and pain of being speared open against his will don’t exist at all. Constellations bloom and glow, creations straight from Castiel’s own mind appearing and disappearing right before his eyes. They call to him, reaching out to provide comfort from a million miles away. 

Here on Earth, ironically, he’s in hell. Zachariah grips his hips hard and grunts like an animal as he thrusts away, the still-conscious part of Castiel’s brain torn between trying to relax so that it doesn’t hurt as much and giving the assholes holding his legs the ride of their life trying to keep him still. Ultimately, he is who he is and it doesn’t seem like anyone is surprised when he sticks with the latter option. He manages to nail the guy holding his right leg square in the stomach, sending him doubling over with an _ “Oof,” _as the two of his remaining attackers step up to take over. One of them returns the favor with a jab to Castiel’s own stomach, making him curl up reflexively and retch into the gag when he’s unable to protect his body. His hands are fully numb at this point, the tingling sensation creeping up slowly from his fingers to his arms, but not doing anything at all to make him give up hope of breaking free. Despite his lack of success and all the odds stacked against him, Castiel keeps pulling. He’ll dislocate his shoulders before he gives any of these assholes the satisfaction of seeing him lose faith.

Meanwhile, Castiel’s physical reaction to the sucker punch doesn’t slow Zachariah down at all, and he realizes very quickly that he’s just made things worse for himself. The replacement attacker on his lower right leg has an iron grip, and the other has the sharp edge of a pocket knife pressed to the hollow of his throat. He looks up into the face of a man who he knows only as Nick, a guy that has _ such _ a nasty reputation at the club that even Crowley avoids him and the staff all call him _ Lucifer _behind his back. Castiel can’t say that he’s even remotely surprised to see him taking part in something like this, and he strongly suspects he’s not the first stripper Lucifer’s either threatened or actually assaulted over the years. There had been a period of time several years prior where the man had borderline stalked Castiel, propositioning him and implying that if Castiel didn’t give in and hand his body over, Lucifer would simply take what he wanted from a younger, more innocent dancer instead. 

His manipulation and wheedling hadn’t worked though; Castiel stood his ground and told the man in no uncertain terms to fuck right off. Eventually, Nick had lost interest and disappeared off the radar for a while, and when he resurfaced his focus had moved on to someone else. Castiel had felt somewhat bad about that at the time, but not enough to try and engage Nick (Lucifer?) directly. He knew that the man still watched him dance, and up until right this minute had assumed that was all he was interested in these days. 

Clearly, he’d read the situation unbelievably wrong. 

Nick, _ Lucifer, _applies pressure to the knife, and Castiel feels a trickle of warm wetness slide down the side of his neck. His cool, unbreakable exterior really starts to crack, a muffled whimper escaping his stuffed-full mouth and Nick’s smirking face going blurry behind a wall of tears. He turns his head away to the side and closes his eyes before they can fall, feeling hot, whiskey-soaked breath hit his ear when he does. 

“Oh, Castiel… what a peculiar thing you are,” Nick murmurs almost _ affectionately _ , albeit in a completely bizarre way. “The fighting back was fun while it lasted, but that mouthful of perfect teeth is a terrifying thing. Let’s work together here, Castiel. I’ll even make you a deal--you open your mouth and take what I have to give you, and I don’t slit your throat where you lay. I get off, you get to live, everybody wins, whaddaya say, _ Cas _ ?” Lucifer ( _ and it’s definitely Lucifer, _Castiel decides,) spits his name out like it’s left a bad taste in his mouth, flecks of saliva landing on Castiel’s face and making him flinch. He keeps his eyes closed and nods miserably, doing his best to subtly shift to the side and off of his hands, but is yanked quickly back onto Zach’s dick. 

_ Fucking hell, _ he thinks to himself. He would have pegged Zach for a member of the early arrivals club, and it’s _ so, so _ much worse that he’s apparently got staying power. Castiel just wants this to be _ over, _ to limp his broken body home and sink into a scalding tub of hot water while he attempts to find the bottom of any bottle of booze. But Lucifer, Gordon, and the two other men, both sporting faces he never even bothered to learn the names of beyond _ Cheap _ and _ Handsy _ wait impatiently, holding him still and palming their groins in drooling anticipation. It’s impossible to look at their behavior and be naive enough to think that this nightmare is even halfway over. He closes his eyes again as Lucifer pulls down on his chin with the hand that’s not wielding a knife, as the head of his hard dick bumps Castiel’s lips. 

With a choked off sob, Castiel opens his mouth to let Lucifer remove the gag and replace it with his cock, shuddering involuntarily at the groan of relief that floats past Lucifer’s lips and the discourteous, staggered thrusts into his face that follow. Lucifer is everything Castiel imagined he might be; rough and careless, twisting fingers into Castiel’s hair and jerking him forward to force him to deepthroat until his eyes water and he chokes. Castiel gags and does his best to breathe and swallow, but he’s helpless against the onslaught, the shoulder that bumps Lucifer’s thighs ineffectual where he tries to use it to push away. Tears spill out of both eyes and drool puddles on the table next to his head, and for a brief moment, Castiel wishes he were dead instead of experiencing _ this _. The humiliation, the pain, and nausea all become too much and he goes limp. He’s never going to make it through three more men, and that’s assuming none of them want to come back for seconds. 

Steeling his resolve, Castiel prays a short benediction for the first time in over twelve years. Perhaps God isn’t listening, but he has to try. He’s not going out like this. If Lucifer is going to kill him then so be it. Desperate for this nightmare to end in whatever form that takes, Castiel readies himself to fight back, prepares to make his last stand, even if it ends his life. 

But no sooner does he hit the _ amen _ than his prayer is miraculously answered. It happens so quickly that Castiel doesn’t have time to even register what’s going on, except that there’s suddenly a bunch of screaming, a gunshot, and there’s no longer a dick in his mouth or his ass. He hears voices, and one of them is _ angry, _that much he can tell, but the ruckus all swirls together senselessly in his head and no individual words or meanings make their way through the haze. Another gunshot rings out and then a heartbeat later Castiel registers the sounds of feet slapping on the pavement, running away. 

/*****/

Slowly but surely, Castiel brings himself back, allows himself to leave the semi-dissociated state he’s slipped into and return to the world of the living. He’s sore in places he didn’t even know were possible to strain, and considering his exceptional flexibility, that’s concerning. As predicted, his back _ does _ feel like it’s full of splinters, his nose and neck seem like they might still be bleeding, and his arms are numb almost all the way to his shoulders. He doesn’t even want to think about the state of his ass, though he’s been fucked dry before ( _ consensually) _and this doesn’t feel much worse than that. All the same, the full weight and impact of what’s happened to him, plus the fact that he’s still tied up and sprawled naked out in the open really starts to hit Castiel hard. His breath comes short and fast as he does his best to roll over onto his side so that he can try to shove his way to sitting before whatever drove that bunch of thugs away comes for him next. 

He hears footsteps approaching and tenses, the numbness in his arms preventing him from being able to do anything besides rock pathetically from side to side like an overturned turtle. Castiel racks his brain for possibilities of who this might be, and none of them are good. Is it a gang member? Police officer? Another asshole from the club? Really, none of the options are better than any other, and Castiel starts to panic as the steps get closer. 

A face appears above him with moving lips, and though it looks somewhat familiar, Castiel can’t place it. He blinks a few times and the face has to repeat, _ “Cas! Cas? Cas!” _ several times before he feels like he can do anything besides open and close his own mouth like a guppy. He blinks hard and shakes his head, willing his mind to come back online and _ focus, _at least long enough for him to try and convince the man attached to the face to help him and not hurt him. He squeezes his eyes shut again and when he opens them, the man above him’s sharp green eyes trigger a rush of memories, including the last time the man had come to his aid. Castiel knows cognitively that the memory he’s grabbed onto happened only a few hours ago, but it honestly feels like a different lifetime. 

_ Attractive gay brother, _his brain supplies helpfully. Castiel definitely could have fared worse, as far as saviors go. He swallows thickly, a sour, musky taste lingering in his mouth, and wills his mind to focus on the words that are spilling from between Green Eyes’ pretty lips. 

“....Can I touch you?” Castiel is fairly sure that the man’s said more than that, but those are the first words besides his own name that he’s been cognitively able to process. After a quick assessment of his rescuer’s body language (standing several paces away with hands out, palms up, face open and concerned, everything about him explicitly spelling out _ non-threatening _), Castiel nods warily. 

The man keeps his hands out, stepping forward slowly as if Castiel is a horse that might spook and kick him in the head, and truthfully, that analogy might not be far off. 

“I’m just going to help you sit up, okay Cas?” He waits for Castiel’s nod of understanding and acceptance before inching forward and slipping one hand behind Castiel’s head, using the other to grip just behind his shoulder. Gently, the man pulls, scooping him upright and letting the hand positioned behind Castiel’s head fall down between his shoulders, patiently bracing Castiel where he sits while he gets his bearings. A rush of darkness clouds Castiel’s vision momentarily as he goes vertical, but it dissipates as quickly as it came. Still, Castiel’s hands curl anxiously around the edge of the table for support, just in case. As soon as he feels remotely steady, he nods and the man immediately steps a pace away, moving his hand to his own jacket and patting one of its pockets.

“I have a knife in here. I’m going to take it out and cut your ties, but only if you say that’s alright,” the man tells him. Castiel wants to distrust him, but the careful sincerity in his voice almost brings tears to his eyes yet again, this time for very different reasons. _ Almost. _ He’s been humiliated enough for one night, no need to add _ crying in front of more strangers _to the list. He’s so close to that scalding hot bath he can practically feel it, but losing the zip ties are a necessary first step, and so he nods again. 

The man produces a pocket knife slowly, opening it and showing it to Castiel before he does anything. He moves intentionally and deliberately, giving Castiel time to change his mind and keeping him from startling. It’s effective, and Castiel finds himself oddly grateful. “I’m Dean, by the way,” the man says almost conversationally as he slices through Castiel’s bindings. “Didn’t get to tell you earlier.” Castiel clears his throat and licks his lips. 

“Hello, Dean,” he manages, though his voice is rough and cracked when he speaks. Dean looks surprised and a little bit pained to hear it, and it’s only then that it occurs to Castiel what an absolute wreck he must appear to be. “Thank you,” he adds, hoping the sentiment will distract _ Dean _from staring at him with such abject concern. His arms finally free, he tries to shake them out but they both drop like two sacks of potatoes to his side, completely useless. When he looks down, he’s not surprised to see that his fingers are purple.

“Shit,” Dean says as he takes notice of the same thing. “Cas, I know being touched by some rando is probably the last thing you want right now, but please let me cut _ that--” _He gestures to the elastic still wrapped around the base of Castiel’s cock before looking at his arms. “And then help you get the feeling back into those suckers before you cop some permanent damage.” The worried furrow creasing the middle of Dean’s brow loses none of its intensity, but his eyes take on a note of hope, wide and insistent when he looks up from Castiel’s hands to his face. Once again, Castiel finds himself inexplicably nodding, and when Dean reaches and slips the tip of the knife underneath the elastic, cutting it free before Castiel’s body can reflexively jerk away, all he can do is breathe a sigh of relief. His first instinct is to curl in on himself, press his hands to overstimulated skin and protect his dick while it settles, but his arms still refuse to cooperate, knuckles knocking uselessly against the table when he tries to use them.

“You’re alright,” Dean says quietly, and when he reaches out to take both of Castiel’s hands in his own, Castiel doesn’t even flinch. Something about Dean feels almost magnetic, and while he’s right that Castiel definitely does_ not _ want to be touched, it’s not _ quite _so intolerable coming from such a kind, gentle man. 

Castiel watches as Dean works with laser-sharp focus, all business as he massages Castiel’s arms, working his stiff hands and fingers until they start to respond. Careful but insistent, Dean shushes him soothingly when the numbness turns to an almost unbearable wave of pins and needles before giving way to actual feeling. Castiel finds himself dropping his face to Dean’s shoulder because it’s a _ lot, _yet another layer of overwhelmingly negative sensations on top of everything he’s already been through, and he’s got absolutely no strength left with which to even attempt to cope. 

When his fingers are once again sporting a more human shade of red and the crawling sensations are fading, Dean tucks Castiel’s hands into his own lap and shirks off the flannel he’s currently wearing over a t-shirt. This time without asking, he wraps it around Castiel’s shoulders and helps him to push his arms inside. Castiel attempts a small half-smile in return because he is truly grateful to be somewhat covered again.

“Now, I’m not trying to tell you what to do here, but I gotta say, you’re lookin’ rough, Cas. Will you let me call an ambulance or at least take you to the hospital?” At those words, Castiel draws back from Dean’s touch but pulls the shirt around him even tighter, forgoing the buttons in favor of wearing it like a wrap. The fabric tugs painfully at the slim pieces of wood embedded in his back, but he ignores that issue for now.

“No,” he growls. “No hospital.” 

Dean bites at the corner of his lip and shrugs, gesturing around them. “Figured you might say that. This ain’t exactly a cop-friendly neighborhood, and you ain’t got a cop-friendly job.” Dean doesn’t push or try to change Castiel’s mind, instead, he looks around for a moment before stooping down and standing back up. Dangling from his hand when he does are Castiel’s (thankfully intact) jeans. Dean holds them up and quirks an eyebrow, and in what’s apparently becoming a patented routine for them, Castiel nods his tacit agreement to the offer. With Dean’s help, Castiel struggles into his pants and is pleased to find that standing isn’t nearly as painful as he feared it might be. 

_ Certainly, no worse than sitting _, he thinks with a grimace, avoiding doing that very thing as he struggles to step into his boots. Dean collects his lost underwear and socks from where they’re strewn about the ground, and Castiel shoves them inside the laundry bag that was flung and left abandoned up against a dumpster. At least he didn’t get robbed on top of everything else, though who knows, maybe they were getting to that. 

There’s an awkward moment then, after he’s dressed and Dean’s still standing there expectantly. “What?” Castiel snaps. “If you’re expecting me to suck your cock as a thank you, perhaps you’ll be so kind as to allow me a raincheck. My throat’s reached its daily limit.” Dean recoils like he’s been bit, and Castiel feels a pang of regret for being so harsh. 

“Cas, I-- _ No _,” he says firmly, his expression horrified. “Shit, Cas. Listen, I parked my car an alley over, I got a real nice car and I don’t like parking her where people might ding the doors, you know? Lucky I did, ‘cause this exit is the closest one to where she’s waiting. I came out and saw what those assholes were doing to you, and Cas?” Dean’s face darkens into something so far from the expressions Castiel’s seen him sport so far it’s almost frightening, and Castiel’s grip tightens on his bag. “I wanted to kill them all,” he admits lowly. He meets Castiel’s gaze and softens slightly. “I’ve been there,” he says. “I know what you’re feelin’ right now. I swear, Cas, I just wanna help.” 

Castiel lets out a deep breath and slumps back against the cool brick wall of the club. Dean’s confession slots a few things into place, leaving him feeling slightly better about their circumstances, and the green-eyed man’s apparent interest in his well-being. For whatever reason, he finds himself _ wanting _to trust Dean, with his earnest eyes and his nervous habit of chewing on his lip. He seems sweet, and Castiel’s not sure he can actually make it the five or so blocks home on his own. His legs are already threatening to give out and he hasn’t even walked anywhere. 

“Did you shoot them?” He finally asks, suspicious, but not judgemental. He would have shot them all. 

“Nah… Well, I got the balding dude in the knee. The second shot was just to scare them off. Followed them out a ways to make sure they actually took off and didn’t come back with weapons or something.” Castiel observes him for a moment through narrowed eyes and then nods, satisfied.

“Good. Uhm... thank you.” 

Dean fidgets, shifting his weight as he searches for something to say. “It’s cool, Cas. If you want me to scram, I will. It’s just, like I said, I know what this...” He gestures up and down Castiel’s beat-up body, “feels like and it fucking sucks. Plus you’ve got a shit load of splinters in your back and your neck needs to be glued shut, at the very least. I’ve got a kickass first aid kit in my car, I used to be a bit of a survivalist.” Dean flushes when he says that as if he’s admitting something embarrassing. Against his better judgment, Castiel finds his interest piqued. As he wonders if by “survivalist” Dean meant more_ extreme hiker _ or more _ doomsday prepper, _ Dean himself scratches absently at the back of his neck. “If you’re not gonna let me take you to the hospital, at least let me patch you up and make sure you’re okay before I leave you alone. Please?” 

And fuck, it’s not like things can get _ worse _ than they already are. If Dean wanted to kidnap or rape or murder him, it’s not as if he needed to go through all of _ this _ to do it. Castiel remembers that Dean was at the club with his younger brother, having a fun and unusual night out for both of them, a wholesome duo that doesn’t belong anywhere near this club or him. Dean _ clearly _ isn’t like the lowlifes that jumped him and took his body without his consent. From everything that Castiel’s seen so far, he’s brave and kind, and sweet. He could certainly ask for worse than Dean’s company, and the man _ did _make several good points about the injuries he has that still need to be fixed up.

As if reading his mind, Dean smiles hopefully and Castiel relents, nodding while stepping forward on pure instinct to lean into his side heavily. Dean’s body tenses briefly beside him and Castiel wonders if he’s misread things, but then Dean relaxes and slings what Castiel’s addled mind tells him feels like a protective arm around his shoulders. Despite how little sense it makes, Castiel feels better with his arm there, steadying and buoying him forward towards the car and _finally,_ _home_. 

***


	2. Part 1: Polaris

_Castiel_

As the two of them stumble together out of the alley behind the club, haphazardly rounding the corner of a line of dilapidated duplexes, Castiel starts to crash. The high of fight-or-flight adrenaline coursing through his system is beginning to wear off as the soreness of his body becomes steadily more pronounced.

“Almost there,” Dean reassures him, tightening the grip he’s moved down to around Castiel’s waist, and Castiel manages an exhausted half-smile in return. While Dean is still a virtual stranger, he’s obviously a nice man with good intentions, and Castiel is grateful he didn’t chase him off. He’d probably be face down in the gutter half a block or so back by now if he’d tried to manage this walk on his own. Dean squeezes his side as they come to a stop beside a beautiful, shiny black Chevy Impala, and despite his condition, Castiel recognizes it immediately. 

“I think we go to the same grocery store,” he murmurs, and the words come out half-slurred but Dean tips his head back and laughs anyway. It’s possible that Castiel’s suffering from a concussion or is perhaps in the early stages of shock, but nonetheless he finds himself thinking that Dean’s laugh is beautiful.

“Yea? You've seen my baby there? She’s pretty damn recognizable,” Dean says with a grin. He unlocks Castiel’s door one-handed and opens it wide, easing him down onto the seat so that his weight is leaning more on his hip than his ass. Once Castiel is settled, Dean squats down next to the open door. “So, you like?”

Castiel runs his hands over the dashboard and the creamy leather, noting again that the radio/tape player system is original and without upgrades. “I _ love, _” he says sincerely. “I was certain that the owner of this car would turn out to be an octogenarian, if I’m being honest.” He turns his head to look over at Dean. “I’m not sure that I’ve ever been more pleased to have been proven wrong.” Dean’s answering smile is brilliant, and Castiel’s body aches a little less. 

The Impala’s engine roars to life, and with the car thrumming beneath them, Castiel directs Dean down the several turns and various alleyways until he’s pulling up alongside the main road where Castiel’s apartment building sits. It’s located in a _ slightly _ better area than the one he works in, but still the sort of place where bars on first story windows are more common than not. Normally, Castiel feels thankful to live on the third floor of a building with a lock on the front that actually works, but today that means two full flights of stairs are in his future. Unsure as he is that he can even make it up _ one _ flight on his own, he’s that much more determined not to inconvenience Dean any more than he already has. This whole night has been humiliating enough, especially considering that in other circumstances, Dean is _ exactly _the type of man he’d be interested in taking out on a nice, normal date. 

And to top it all off, Dean doesn’t seem to be put off in the least by the fact that Castiel is a stripper, or that he just witnessed him being brutally gang-raped in a dirty alley. He’s handsome and sweet and Castiel is painfully aware that this could be the worst possible moment to be dwelling on romantic possibilities. But he’s hurt and miserable and _ just _lonely enough that he can’t muster up the two shits he’d need to care about that. 

Undoubtedly picking up on Castiel’s hesitation, Dean looks over at him from across the bench seat with open concern. His worried, hangdog expression causes Castiel’s resolve to send him away and lick his wounds in private to instantly weaken. Dean must sense a shift in the air, though, because he puts the car in park but doesn’t remove his seatbelt.

“Listen, Cas,” he starts. “Maybe I was a little pushy back there. I’m not you, and I got no right tellin’ you how you should feel or guessing what you need. Probably the last thing you want right now is some strange guy inside your apartment.” He looks a little sad as he speaks, and Castiel feels a modicum of guilt for considering brushing him off, even just internally. Dean scratches at the back of his neck the way he’d done before confessing in the alley and looks out the window. Castiel notes that he seems to favor that gesture before sharing something he considers personal, and sure enough, Dean continues talking_. _ “My brother’s always telling me that I get too invested,” he says with a shrug. 

There’s silence in the car as Castiel hesitates and glances over at his building. He considers the stairs, the stinging bits of wood lodged in his back, and the cuts that aren’t going to close themselves. If the choice is between Dean and a hospital, a place where there’ll be bright lights, a bill he can’t pay, and an endless litany of questions that could possibly get him killed for answering, the contest doesn’t even exist. 

God help him, it’s been so long since he’s been touched kindly. 

“If you’re sure that it’s no trouble, I think that I would very much appreciate some help.” 

***

As promised, Dean grabs his first-aid kit from the trunk before helping a struggling Castiel to his feet. Exhaustion is hitting him hard from all sides now, and as such, he abandons even the pretense of not needing Dean’s help to get up the stairs. His apparent new friend is careful, thoughtful, and reassures him several times during the process that _ he’d _ be the asshole in this situation if he didn’t _ want _ to stay and help, after everything Castiel’s been through. Even still, by the time they finally reach the top of the steps, Dean’s close to dragging him along, which is no small amount of embarrassing. Cursing Zachariah, Crowley, and everyone in between, Castiel flushes with shame as no amount of prayers and silent begging makes his legs anything but weak and borderline useless. Slumping against the frame for support and to give Dean a break, Castiel opens his door and stumbles inside. Flicking on the lights and turning to flip over every lock on the door behind them, _ just in case, _ Castiel simply shrugs in tired resignation when Dean’s eyes track his motions_. _

_ Who knows if any of those freaks have figured out where he lives? _

As Castiel shuffles past, Dean stands uncertainly in the middle of his living room, looking around and presumably taking in the hundreds of books that span the wall to wall shelves. “Damn Cas,” he says with a whistle. “This is some collection.” Castiel makes his way slowly across the space, bending to drag an overstuffed ottoman out from the corner using the very last of his energy. 

“I prefer books to TV, most of the time,” he admits, sinking down onto the soft cushion with a sigh. “Many people find that boring.” Dean chews his lip and watches as Castiel moves, unbuttoning Dean’s own shirt and letting it fall from his shoulders. Castiel thinks--_ knows-- _ that he should feel some type of way about this, about taking off his clothes in front of a stranger again so soon. _ Fear, perhaps? Anxiety? _But he digs deep and can’t come up with anything except for that same, bone-deep exhaustion that’s been plaguing him since the car. Sure, he’s likely desensitized somewhat from getting naked for a living every other day for the last decade, but he’d be lying if he refused to admit that Dean’s presence is a factor as well. Somehow, the man puts him at ease instead of on edge. Castiel digs deep on that one, too, but is unable to materialize any possible ideas as to why. It’s not exactly attraction, although he knows from meeting Dean earlier in the night that attraction (or at least the potential for it) is there. No, it’s… something he can’t quite put his finger on. All Castiel knows is that he feels better having Dean close by, and ultimately? He decides he’s earned the right to not look at that too closely, at least for the night. 

_ Besides_, he reminds himself, not for the first time. _ If Dean wanted to hurt me, he’s had every conceivable chance. All he’s done is try to help. _

And because of that, Castiel doesn’t even flinch when Dean settles behind him on the couch. He braces with his hands on the edge his seat, but Dean’s hands just graze his shoulder blade carefully before starting in on removing the wood slivers from his back. Dean uses a pair of tweezers from his own first aid kit, and he’s quiet as he works. His hands are gentle, the pads calloused where they brush Castiel’s skin, and he can tell that Dean is doing his best not to touch him more than is strictly necessary. A part of him appreciates the effort, but another part badly wants to curl up in his arms and be _ held _ by someone who doesn’t _ want _anything from him for once, except to make him feel better. Castiel almost wishes that were standard procedure for patching up a rape victim, but he doubts Dean would dare, and he’s certainly not going to ask, lest Dean think him insane. 

Once all of the offending wood pieces are relocated from Castiel’s back to a little pile on the coffee table, Dean dabs iodine all over the open spots and tapes a couple of large pieces of gauze in place over that. 

“Oh, shit,” he says softly, his fingers skating across the edge of a piece of tape. 

“What? What’s wrong?” 

“You probably wanted to shower, didn’t you? I mean, I know I…” Dean trails off and clears his throat, and while Castiel is facing away from him, he imagines Dean is scratching at his neck again. Castiel thinks back on his plans for a hot bath and discovers that as much as he’d love to soak and scrub himself raw, he can’t even imagine standing for long enough to shower _or _hoisting himself out of the tub when he’s done. He’d probably fall asleep and drown in there, and letting Dean help him bathe is _absolutely _where he draws the line. 

“It’s alright,” Castiel says after a protracted moment of silence. “I think it would be best if I waited until morning, anyway. I really just want to go to sleep and forget this nightmare ever happened.” Dean stands and comes around in front of him, nodding as he bends over to dig in the first-aid bag he left at Castiel’s feet. He surfaces with a box of butterfly closures and still more gauze in hand.

“I think you can get away with skipping the stitches or glue,” he says, motioning to his own neck in lieu of touching Castiel’s. “So long as we stick a few of these babies on and you take good care of them.” He arches an eyebrow and Castiel forces a little smile. Dean kneels down beside his legs and spreads his new materials out on the table. The iodine comes first this time, and it’s cold on his skin but Dean’s hand is warm and soothing where it cups the side of his neck for stability. Castiel works hard not to lean into it too much. Face to face now, Castiel can’t help but notice that Dean’s tongue presses just behind his teeth while he focuses. The pink of it is visible when his mouth drops open a little in concentration, and it’s distracting, which is definitely not a bad thing. But Dean works quickly and is ripping off tape to finish securing the bandage over the closures before long. When he’s done, he drops back on his heels and looks up at Castiel.

“Guess I’ll get out of your hair,” he says softly, almost hesitant. There’s a beat, but when Castiel doesn’t respond, Dean rustles in the bag again and comes up with another stack of gauze, a tube of ointment, and a roll of tape. He places the items next to the butterfly bandages before picking up one of the empty paper gauze wrappers and placing it in his own lap. “For you,” he says, nodding towards the supplies. “In case you need to redo them after your shower tomorrow. Uh, and there’s some cream for your… you know.” He flushes as he gestures back towards his own ass. When Castiel again stares and doesn’t reply, Dean looks down for a moment and pulls a pen out from the bag. He uses his leg as a table to jot down something on the wrapper scrap that Castiel can’t read since it’s upside down. He holds it out. “This too,” he offers. “I get if you never want to see or hear from me again, bad associated memories and all that. But you know, if you aren’t gonna go to the hospital, I thought maybe you might want to have someone you can check-in with. I won’t ever judge you, Cas.” Dean speaks sincerely, holding eye contact until Castiel gets a little overwhelmed and has to look away, eyes misting. “It’d mean a lot to me if you’d at least let me know that you’re doing okay tomorrow, but that’s up to you.”

Castiel accepts the scrap of paper and does his best to give Dean a genuine smile in return because he _is _grateful. And if he’s already thinking about using the phone number, Dean doesn’t need to know that. “Thank you, Dean,” he tells him, and Dean nods, scooping up his discarded flannel shirt before shouldering his bag and stepping away towards the only exit the apartment has. With some discomfort and a lot of effort, Castiel forces his weary body upright and follows Dean to the door. 

Halfway into the hall, Dean stops inside the open frame and turns back to look at Castiel where he’s leaning on the wall for balance. His eyes roving Castiel’s form, Dean chews his lip thoughtfully. “You’re alright, yea, Cas? You sure?” 

Castiel blinks for a moment before releasing a breath. “No,” he says honestly, surprising himself. “But thank you again, Dean, for everything. You are an extraordinary human.” 

Dean hesitates, as if there’s something else he’s dying to say or do, but in the end, he just gives Castiel a sad little smile as he takes off down the stairs. When he turns at the landing, he looks up again and waves. Castiel watches until he’s well out of sight before closing the door and engaging all of the locks once again. He slumps against it until he hears the roar of the Impala start up outside and disappear down the block. When he’s sure that Dean is really gone, he makes his way back through his empty apartment, stopping briefly in the bathroom to down a couple of painkillers and Listerine the fuck out of his mouth. When all he can taste is mint, he shuffles to his bedroom without bothering to turn on any of the lights. Castiel collapses in a heap on the mattress, every bit of the horrible day he had still clinging relentlessly to his skin. 

He curls into himself and tries to ignore the smell of sweat and oil and smoke, sex and cum and someone else’s cologne stinging his nostrils. It’s not hard, his body is nearing complete shut-down at this point. He falls asleep and thinks vaguely that he wouldn’t mind at all if he never woke up.

*** 

When he does wake the next morning, Castiel’s so sore that he’s barely able to roll himself over and drag ass to the bathroom to pee. When neither a hot shower nor the subsequent bath he takes do anything to make that better, Castiel realizes that this isn’t something he’s just going to walk (or sleep) off. He needs to let Crowley know he’s taking some time off and to remove him from the schedule, so he schleps himself out to the living room and flops heavily onto the couch. The thought that he won’t have to explain what happened to his asshole of a boss is both a relief and completely infuriating. A wave of hot anger washes over Castiel as he remembers Crowley standing at the mouth of the alley, coldly and steadfastly refusing to step in and help. He shouldn’t ever go back to that club, he knows that, but what are his options, really? He’s a thirty-two-year-old stripper with no other marketable skills and nothing official to put on a resume for the entirety of his adult life. Even if another club would take him on, he’d still have to build a brand new client base _and _fight for hours and stage time. He’d be competing with men and women who are basically half his age, with twice his energy, and willing to work harder for less money. 

No, Castiel’s already resigned to the fact that he’ll have to return to Crowley’s establishment eventually. He’s not worried about whether Crowley himself will give him a hard time about coming back, either. He’s Crowley’s cash cow and is more than confident that a few weeks off will be more than enough to prove his worth to the club. Not that he wants to be anywhere _ near _ the place right now regardless, since _when _that day arrives, it’ll be with him in top fucking form. From now on, he’ll be strapped when he comes to work, with weapons on him at all times, ready and willing to castrate at any John Q Harddick who so much as looks at him the wrong way. 

In the end, Castiel shoots Crowley a text message simply stating that he’ll let him know when he’s ready to work again. Unsurprisingly, Crowley responds with the following:

_ Don’t wait too long Castiel, everyone’s replaceable. _

Though Crowley can’t see it, Castiel rolls his eyes and gives his phone the finger. _ Everyone’s replaceable _. That may be technically true, but he’s smart enough to recognize Crowley’s bluster when he sees it. Business handled, Castiel puts Crowley, the club, and all thoughts of his career on permanent pause for the time being, relaxing back into the couch cushions and flicking on the TV. He’s in the mood to be completely mindless, for once.

By mid-afternoon, though, with no further business to handle or daily self-care to busy his mind with, Castiel can no longer stave off the full impact of what’s happened to him. At one point, he mutes the TV and just sits on his couch, staring into space and trying to organize his feelings and emotions. Tentatively, he opens the floodgates, lets the memories permeate and drown him, no longer attempting to block it all out in the name of sanity and self-preservation.

That move ultimately ends with him sobbing on his side into the worn cushions for the better part of three hours. Castiel cries so hard that he gets nauseous, dry heaving over the edge of the couch until the memory of Lucifer’s dick in his mouth makes the pantomime a reality and he’s running for the bathroom. When the waves of nausea finally subside, Castiel is fairly certain he’s managed to bring up everything he’s eaten, not only today but ever, and he curls up on his side. Exhausted and shaking, he keeps his face pressed into the cool tiles of the bathroom floor to try and soothe the budding headache throbbing above his eyes. After some time, minutes or hours or days, he drags himself to his feet and rinses his mouth before taking yet another steaming hot shower, where he scrubs every inch of unbroken skin he still has red and raw.

The gauze bandages Dean had so carefully placed on his neck and back the night before peel under the moisture from the shower and the steam filling up the bathroom. Essentially a zombie at this point, Castiel doesn’t bother to try and replace them or even relocate the used ones from the shower floor to the trash can. He observes via the mirror that the butterfly closures are still in place, and as such, he feels reasonably confident that he won’t accidentally bleed to death overnight. Completely beaten down, he flops back into bed, still damp from the half-hearted drag of his towel across his skin. The discomfort of lying in a quickly-cooling wet spot barely registers. It’s still light outside when he closes his eyes and wills himself unconscious, but despite the early hour, he doesn’t wake again until well into the next morning. 

***

Things are only incrementally better the next day, but incremental improvement is better than none at all. At least, that’s what Castiel repeats inside his own head. Still, when he finds himself back on the couch where he’d had his semi-breakdown less than twenty-four hours prior, it begins to occur to Castiel that perhaps Dean was right, and it’s not a great idea to attempt to go this alone. His phone is still sitting on the side table where he left it, with no new notifications except for a missed call from his brother Gabriel. He musters up the courage to hit “call back,” but when Gabriel answers, Castiel’s not actually sure whether to be pleased or disappointed. Gabe sucks him into a half-hour, one-sided conversation about his relationship woes (_ read: his girlfriend Kali’s fierce refusal to tolerate his infidelity and general bullshit) _and despite several weak attempts, Castiel never really gets a word in edgewise. When his brother eventually hangs up because he’s technically at work and not supposed to be on his phone, Castiel feels moderately less lonely but no better about his own situation. 

He sits in silence for a while, flipping his phone over in his hands distractedly as he tries to figure out what he should do. He _ could _call Meg. She’d definitely listen, but she’d want to come over and verify that he was truly okay in person. In fact, Castiel is incredibly sure she’d insist on it, inevitably showing up at his doorstep with pizza and beer, whether he wanted her to or not. As much as he loves Meg and usually appreciates her take-no-prisoners approach to life, he’s not up for company just yet. And so he sits, and thinks, and comes up with nothing. Eventually, Castiel’s gaze lands on the mess of medical supplies littering the table in front of him. The only thing that’s missing from the way Dean left it all is the tube of ointment he’d taken into the bathroom as soon as he’d remembered it was there. Alternatively, Castiel had earlier cleaned up all the trash and refuse that they’d created, leaving behind only one thing. The piece of torn wrapper with Dean’s note on it catches Castiel’s eye and he picks it up.

_ Dean _

_ 462-5427 _

_ Call me, Cas _

He considers throwing it out. Based on nothing except for some vague notion that he _ should, _ that this was a weird as fuck way to meet someone, that his life is now complicated enough without every new layer that Dean might bring into it. Not to mention the fact that he wants to _ forget, _ and speaking to Dean again will only force him to remember. Inside his head, Castiel runs through every conceivable reason _ not _ to contact Dean, from _ he was just being nice, he doesn’t really want to be burdened with this, _ to _ you’re attracted to him and this is not the fucking time. _Each reason is more legitimate than the last, and Castiel finds a reason to disregard every single one of them. He swipes open his phone and punches out a text.

** _Castiel: Hello, Dean. _ **

He only has to wait a couple of minutes before the phone pings cheerfully with a reply. 

_ Dean: Cas, is that you? _

** _Castiel: Yes… is this a bad time?_ **

_ Dean: No way… Shit, Cas. I was worried when I didn’t hear from you yesterday. I was a hot second away from coming over there. _

Castiel’s heart skips a beat when Dean seems genuinely concerned about his well-being. Compassion and authentic interest are not things he’s accustomed to, even from Meg and Gabriel, who he knows to care about him. The two of them mostly tell him to “suck it up, buttercup,” or something equally helpful when he comes to them with his problems. He settles back into the couch before replying.

** _Castiel: My apologies… It’s been a difficult 24 hours._ **

_ Dean: Want to talk about it? _

Staring down at the brightly lit screen between his hands, Castiel realizes that he does. He does want to talk about it. He’s certainly not getting any better sitting here and wallowing, or crying so hard he tosses his cookies. So, he tells Dean everything, starting from the emotional breakdown on the couch and ending with this conversation. Of course, without being able to see him, it’s impossible to know how much attention Dean is actually paying, but his responses are timely and thoughtful. Not to mention, when they do eventually decide to say goodnight for the evening, it’s _ hours _later. Castiel thinks that must count for something. Dean signs off by insisting that if Castiel is still feeling rough the next day, he’s welcome to text again, or even if he just wants to talk, about anything, or nothing at all. 

** _Castiel: Thank you, Dean._ **

Over the next few days, Castiel and Dean text often and Castiel begins to open up about the attack itself. It’s not always easy for him to put words to the emotions flowing through his mind, but Dean helps him through it. Dean helps him process and never tells him that he’s being silly or that he should just move on. And it does seem to help; Castiel slowly starts to feel less overwhelmed, more capable of moving forward. But then, five nights after he was attacked, Castiel wakes in a cold sweat from a _ very _realistic nightmare. While he slept, his traitorous brain decided to replay the events of that night for him to watch in full color and unrelenting surround sound. Even as the haze of the dream dissipates, Castiel can still feel Zachariah’s hands on the insides of his thighs, Lucifer’s voice whispering filth in his ear. Castiel bolts upright, frantically grabbing for his phone and texting Dean without a second thought as to when that reflex became second nature. But surprisingly, instead of pinging with a text reply, his phone vibrates in his hand with an incoming call. Castiel picks up on the second ring.

“Dean?” His voice is desperate and cracked, his breath still coming heavy and fast, probably making all sorts of terrible, staticky noises in Dean’s ear. “I’m…” 

“Cas, hey, you’re alright. Listen, I’m going to count and you’re going to breathe, you hear me? In for five, out for five, nice and slow. Here we go--one, two, three, four, five. Now out: one, two, three, four, five.” Dean repeats the sequence over and over, calm and patient until Castiel’s breathing has returned to normal and the thudding of his heart no longer feels as if it’s about to explode from his chest. Dean stays on the line, talking Castiel through retrieving a glass of orange juice and then climbing back into bed. And then he listens for another half hour while Castiel pours his heart out, admits he’s not sure he’ll ever get over this, ever get through it, ever be able to step foot inside that godforsaken club again. Castiel talks freely into the dark of his room about how he’s afraid not just for his safety but for his career and his livelihood. He spews it all out and keeps on going until there’s nothing left and he’s so exhausted he can barely lift his head or keep his eyes open. 

And Dean listens to it all. Dean doesn’t tell him not to be afraid. Dean makes him _ laugh, _ makes him _ smile, _against all odds. And when they finally say goodnight, as the first light of early morning cracks the edges of his blinds, Castiel somehow feels better than he has in days. 

He almost expects Dean to show up at his door after that, perhaps bearing dinner and DVDs, likely some of those westerns or Star movies he talks about so much. But he hasn’t been invited and Castiel’s not sure that he’s actually ready to be around anyone just yet, even Dean. _ Even though Dean saved him, in more ways than one. _ Perhaps it’s hypocritical, or at least unnecessarily cautious, but regardless, Dean seems to respect his wishes. He dances around the idea, giving Castiel enough of an opening that if he _ wanted _or needed some company it was clear that the offer was there, but he doesn’t push. Some days it’s hard to believe that Dean is a real person, he’s so unbelievably… righteous. Castiel’s never met anyone like him. 

As the days go on, their conversations, both text and voice, slowly but steadily become less heavy, less weighed down by Castiel’s pain. The change is gradual and not forced, but as the third week of Castiel’s unintended vacation is drawing to a close, they’re no longer talking about what happened in the alley at all. The only exception is for an occasional check-in by Dean to ensure that Castiel’s truly coping, and not retreating unhealthily back into his mind.

But he’s not, to his own surprise. His wounds and bruises are all healed, save for a slight scab on his neck, a mark that could easily be covered by stage makeup, if he felt so inclined. Castiel finds more and more with each passing day that he’s had enough of being holed up and alone, and God knows his bank account is wearing a little thin. He’s aware that he’s closing in fast on the inevitable need to go back to work, and for the most part he feels ready. The idea that Zach or Nick could be there though, that they could potentially be plotting to finish what they started… that thought is what’s yet holding him back from feeling fully confident in his return. The bottom line is, Castiel can only watch his own back _ so much. _ What if next time they recruit more men to hold him down? It’s a valid concern, and one that he shares openly with Dean the next time they text. It’s not a surprise when his phone rings immediately, they’re speaking verbally at _ least _once a day at this point, but it’s always welcome.

“Hello, Dean,” Castiel says warmly.

_ “Turn on the news. The local news, hurry up.” _

Frowning, Castiel fishes in the cushions of his couch for the remote, standing back up before clicking his shitty little TV on. He struggles to find the correct channel until Dean impatiently gives him the numbers to punch in. When the channel flips and he sees what’s on the screen, it takes a moment for the images to fully process. When they do finally start to make sense, all Castiel can think to do is sink down onto the coffee table beside him. Stunned silent, he stares at a headshot-style photo of Zachariah’s face filling the screen. Behind his smarmy grin, emergency services move around in the background, and a reporter drones on about a _ grisly suicide at a local church. _

_ “Local Pastor Zachariah Adler was found hanging from the rafters of Saint Michael’s Church this afternoon when parishioners began arriving for the scheduled evening mass. Police have not yet released further details, other than no foul play is suspected at this time. However, KYS news is on the scene and has spoken with several eyewitnesses who have painted a much more gruesome and disturbing picture. Several church-goers report the presence of a suicide note in Pastor Adler’s handwriting, that among other things, appears to have included confessions to rape and sexual assault of multiple local sex workers and exotic dancers. These eyewitnesses also claim that despite his apparent suicide by hanging, that was not the extent of the Pastor’s injuries. According to one congregation member, there existed a significant amount of blood on the floor of the church that seemed to originate from somewhere on the lower half of the Pastor’s body. As you can imagine, this event has the quiet south side neighborhood extremely shaken up…” _

Castiel continues to sit frozen as the picture of Zachariah disappears and the camera pans to include a couple of locals, the newswoman asking them inane questions like, _ Does it worry you that something like this could happen here? _

What does that even mean, anyway?

_ “Cas? Cas, you there?” _ Dean’s voice crackles in his ear as Castiel draws in a steadying breath. Zachariah is _ gone. _ It’s practically impossible for him to wrap his mind around, since the threat of his simple existence has been a source of stress in Castiel’s every waking moment for days now. The idea that those worries have suddenly dissipated like dust in the wind is… well, it’s almost too much. It's _such _an abject relief, in fact, that Castiel is easily able to shove aside the little voice in the back of his head that’s adamantly insisting Zachariah would _ never _off himself. 

_ Especially in that humiliating manner, _ the voice says. _ His pride and his ego are _ far _ too inflated to allow him to even consider such a thing. _

_ But he did, _ the part of his brain that wants his normal life back insists. _ He did, look at the TV, there’s your proof. You’re just self-sabotaging like you always do. You’re afraid of what a normal life might mean for you… and for Dean. _

_ Dean. _

“Dean, my apologies,” Castiel breathes. “It’s just--”

“I know,” Dean says quietly. “Are you alright?” 

Castiel swallows and nods slowly before remembering that Dean can’t see him. “Yes,” he says clearly. “I believe that I will be.” 

“You sure? This is a lot to process…”

“I’m fine,” he insists. “In fact, Dean, I think that I’m ready to return to work now.” 

“Really?” Dean’s tone is surprised, but not disapproving. “That’s really great, Cas, I’m proud of you.” 

Despite the swirling mix of thoughts and feelings inside his head, Castiel smiles. “Mmm… I suppose it is. But there _ is _one last thing that you can do for me, if you’re feeling up to it.” 

“Name it, sunshine.” 

***

When Castiel gets up on stage the following night, it’s with Dean sitting confidently in the front row, smiling and cheering him on. More importantly, though, Dean’s providing another set of eyes and ears in case any trouble arises. The two of them are definitely friends now, he and Dean, and Dean was more than happy to volunteer his services as requested for the cause. But while that’s definitely why Castiel asked him to come, he’d be lying if he claimed he didn’t feel a major thrill at the idea of Dean looking up at him and watching him dance. 

They haven’t had much of a chance to talk in person yet. Unfortunately, the five-minute ride from his apartment building to the club was all too short. But Castiel’s not naive, and he’s pretty sure he isn’t imagining the pleasant ripple of reciprocal tension pulsing between them. Not that he’s decided exactly what he wants to _ do _ with that tension just yet, but it’s still relieving to feel like himself again, to know that his ability to feel normal attraction isn’t ruined. If nothing else, Castiel’s ready at this point to admit it; he really _ likes _Dean. 

Hours into his shift, Castiel’s relieved to say that it’s all been business as usual. And while he does happen to spot the man he managed to kick in the stomach _ (Cole, maybe?) _ , Nick is nowhere in sight. Equally fortunate, the rest of the assholes who jumped him don’t seem to be around, either. Meg had been more than glad to see him, pulling him into a tight hug and griping about how the club has been _ a hell of a lot creepier without you here, Clarence. _She’d poked and prodded at him in the locker room, digging for information on what prompted the sudden, unscheduled vacation. Castiel had promised to fill her in later, perhaps the following weekend over a bottle of whiskey and a romantic comedy marathon at his place. Perhaps even more surprisingly, he was actually looking forward to it. It’d be nice to spend some time with Meg, and thanks to Dean, he finally felt okay about sharing what happened to him.

It’s about as smooth a return to work as he could have asked for, and now he’s finally on stage dancing, and it feels _ fucking good. _ Castiel’s always enjoyed the performance aspect of his job, creepers notwithstanding. All these years later and he still finds himself craving the empowering feeling of being able to capture the attention of both men and women, of making them want you so badly they’ll drop their hard-earned dollars at your feet just for a chance to _ look. _ And he _ refuses _ to succumb to the fear that _ dancing _got him into the mess Zachariah created. Castiel’s certainly not a perpetual optimist, but he does believe that most people are good. The men who hurt him were not. They were and are objectively bad men, solely to blame for their own decisions; he was just a convenient target. 

All of these thoughts whirl through his head as his body rotates around the pole, and Castiel finds himself relieved to discover that the emotion he feels most strongly during his return performance is _ happiness. _

__   


The song and routine he’d chosen to perform tonight are both especially sensual, requiring a lot of hip rolling and slow, dirty grinding, his own hands drifting over his body as if they belong to someone else. He tries to vary his eye contact and not narrow his focus down completely to Dean, but it’s difficult. With the man’s intense green eyes staring him down, his plush bottom lip pulled in between his perfect white teeth, it’s hard for Castiel to come up with a good reason to look anywhere else. So much so that at one point during his number, Castiel has to turn around and face the back of the stage. He alters his routine, dropping to his knees and rolling through his ass onto his back to thrust his hips up towards the ceiling, just to force his eyes to knock it the hell off. So he probably shouldn’t be surprised when, as he rolls his pelvis into his own hand, fingers squeezing his semi-hard dick through black lace lingerie, his eyes drift shut of their own volition. Shouldn’t feel any sort of shock that behind them, it’s still _ all Dean. _ Castiel finds himself biting at his own lip and groaning, completely getting off on the fact that the man he’s fantasizing about is _ watching_, that _ everyone _ is watching him dance for _ Dean. _

When the music ends, the money that rains down on him has to be one of Castiel’s largest nets from a solo performance, ever. It would appear that his attraction to Dean is good for business, and that’s certainly not helping Castiel slow the hell down. 

For the rest of the night, he watches Dean openly. Even while he’s sitting in another man’s lap, grinding on his cock, strange hands all over his chest, all he can see is _ Dean_, and Dean holds him with his eyes right back. Castiel’s dick never really has the chance to get soft, resulting in hours of constant, edging arousal. It’s also the most he’s ever been genuinely turned on at work in his entire career. What he couldn’t have predicted, is that he _ loves _ it. It feels as if he’s taking back power and control of his own body, of what sex does or could mean to him, and he’s_so _fucking grateful for everything Dean’s brought into his life that he almost gets emotional over it. 

A half-hour before his shift ends, Castiel drops the pretense and sits directly in Dean’s lap, straddling him. He doesn’t say a word, just dances and holds that _ come-fuck-me _ eye contact they’ve been exchanging all night long. Dean’s palpably hard beneath him and Castiel _ knows _ that Dean’s able to see and feel his own arousal too. With that in mind, he rocks his hips up against Dean’s abdomen, baiting him, but the man stays perfectly patient, except for the look in his eyes. And when Castiel grinds down, instead of reaching for his hips, Dean’s hands wrap defiantly around the edge of his chair, like he’s not quite sure what to do with them. In the end, Castiel’s the one who takes the first step and moves those hands up, and once they’re there, they burn like a brand. He can feel Dean struggling not to squeeze, not to pull him down, his arms trembling _ just _ enough to be noticeable and his body straining to keep still. Castiel feels powerful and _ strong _and hot as fuck. 

When he gets up to go shower, change, and clock out, he leaves Dean flushed and visibly worked up. His glazed eyes follow Castiel’s path as he walks away, a sweet little smile stuck plastered on his face that Castiel prays he’s about to be allowed to kiss right off. He looks around, doing a quick sweep of the room before he heads back, but doesn’t see Meg. She’s not in the locker room when he steps inside either, nor does she show up while he’s in the shower. That’s definitely unusual, and Castiel checks the schedule in case it changed while he was on his unintended break. No, Meg is unmistakably supposed to still be on tonight, getting off at the same time as Castiel, but perhaps she’s taken a lucrative, last-minute offer for a private dance. That wouldn’t be all the way out of the realm of normal for her, though Castiel’s definitely come to know escaping from work early as one of her essential personality traits. 

Sighing, he pulls out his phone and sends her a text, asking if he can consider her penciled in for a get-together on Friday night since neither of them works. While he’s not looking forward to reliving his trauma all over again, Meg is a good friend and it _would_ be nice to have another person to talk to about it all. Plus, arguably, Meg is in as much danger going forward as he is. She deserves to know about the sketchy ( _ criminal) _ patrons and the new lows Crowley is apparently willing to stoop to so that they can properly have each other’s backs. 

But Meg doesn’t reply, and Castiel considers that proof enough she’s occupied with a customer. On any other day, he’d stick around to catch her, but Dean’s out there waiting for him, to drive him home and _ hopefully _more. Castiel palms his cock through his jeans and scolds himself for letting his downstairs brain take such control. The reproach doesn’t take since he can’t exactly lie to himself inside his own head, he’s truly not sorry in the least.

Dean is leaning casually against the wall between the dressing rooms and the bathrooms when Castiel exits. He’s looking down, engaged in whatever’s lighting up the screen of his phone despite the sexy dance currently happening out on the main stage. It’s a closing number designed to keep customers in their seats for the last hour, and the three dancers involved tend to really pull out all the stops. Two men and one woman pulse and grind on each other obscenely, in a way that even Castiel has to admit is pretty hot. But Dean pays them no mind, looking up only to grin at Castiel widely before pocketing his phone. Stepping forward, he offers his arm congenially, as if they’re at a debutante ball and not in the middle of a shady ass strip club. It’s endearing, and Castiel can’t help but smile back as he loops his arm through Dean’s, allowing himself to be led. He pushes all thoughts of Meg from his mind as Dean guides him out the front doors of the club.

***

It’s a strange thing to have so many different, warring emotions and _ feelings _ all battling for airtime in Castiel’s head. Especially when he knows perfectly well what it is that he _ wants. _ Dean doesn’t help with that, either, persisting in being nothing short of a perfect gentleman. He expertly dodges Castiel’s advances, both in the parking lot and on the short ride back to his apartment, while making it _ very _ clear that he isn’t uninterested, just unwilling to take advantage. And as twisted a turn-on as that may be, the fact remains that Dean’s patient understanding and calm determination to put Castiel’s needs first only makes Castiel want him more. He’s ready and more than willing to show Dean that he can be more than some helpless victim who needs constant coddling and to take things _ slow _. 

At the same time, the common sense, logical portion of Castiel’s brain hasn’t been _ entirely _ silent, either. And unfortunately for Castiel’s dick, it has a few things to say about Castiel diving into the sexual deep end of a new pool so soon. Which isn’t unfair, not after such a physically _ and _ emotionally scarring violation of his body. Admittedly, though, even the ultra-logical side of his brain can’t imagine a better scenario in which to do so, _ should _ he decide he’s ready. What with Dean already knowing his dark secrets _ and _ demonstrably more interested in taking care of Castiel than getting his rocks off, he’s an ideal partner. But that doesn’t automatically make _ sex _ with him--or anyone--a _ good _idea just yet.

Even still, Castiel finds himself straining to grab hold of a reason, _ any _ reason, to kick that same logic to the curb. He’s worked hard over the last several weeks to process what’s happened to him. He’s spent hours, _ days _ learning to cope with and parse through the myriad of feelings and emotions instead of burying them or pretending that they don’t exist and that he’s fine. He’s not _ fine, _but he is okay, and part of being okay is accepting that he deserves good things. That was a hard thing to admit, but it’s only been through treating himself kindly that Castiel’s been able to so relentlessly fight to take back ownership and power over his own body. 

_ Dean _ is the one who’s given him that, who’s been his rock and his safe space in _ every _ way. And tonight, being on that stage again was a _ revelation _ for Castiel. He felt _ happy, _ strong, and in control, _ proud _that he hadn’t let those who tried to break his body, break his soul. 

None of that would have been possible without Dean’s support and encouragement, and tonight, his physical presence in the crowd. Just having him there, confidently assuring Castiel of his safety, made the whole night a win before he’d even stepped out on stage. Castiel feels _ free _ with Dean, and part of that freedom includes giving himself permission to own the _ attraction _and desire that is so very clearly mutual, regardless of Dean’s apparent determination not to give in to it. 

“Get out,” Castiel says, once they pull up to the curb outside of his building. He doesn’t give Dean a chance to argue, just hops out his own side and makes his way to the front door of the apartment complex. He can hear Dean locking up the car behind him and grins to himself, since at the very least, Dean’s not unwilling to follow him upstairs. When Dean reaches his side, Castiel threads their fingers together and leads the way up the steps to his apartment, and Dean lets him. He unlocks his door and goes to push it open, but it’s then that Dean’s reluctance and _ morals, _or whatever his issues are, make an untimely appearance once again. 

Flexing his fingers, Dean lets go of Castiel’s hand and throws an arm across the open door, blocking his way. Presumably, he thinks Castiel will step back, giving them room to _ talk, _ but Castiel doesn’t budge, except to turn his head so that their faces are only inches apart. He almost expects Dean’s expression to be guarded, maybe even patronizing, but it’s nothing of the sort. His pupils are wide and his lips are parted slightly, and Castiel’s instantly back in the club, straddling his lap, squeezing his muscled shoulders and grinding down on what was _ very _clear and unambiguous interest. Castiel’s eyes track the motion as Dean’s tongue wets his lips before they close around a swallow. The corner of Castiel’s mouth tugs up into a smile to see it.

“Cas,” Dean murmurs, a note of _ pleading _suffusing his voice that Castiel finds positively delightful. “Don’t wanna take advantage…” 

Castiel’s little smile breaks into a grin as he grabs Dean by the lapels of his jacket and yanks him through the door, slamming it closed with his foot before whipping Dean around and shoving him bodily up against it. Dean lets out a little whimper before pulling his bottom lip in between his teeth, his chest heaving. His entire body is coiled so tightly that it’s almost vibrating as he works to hold himself back. Castiel’s unrelenting, pressing up against him, fitting their chests, groins, legs together like pieces to a puzzle, not a breath of air between them. Dean’s hands flex in and out of fists by his own hips, his head tilted back against the door and his breath coming sharp and quick. 

_ “Cas,” _he forces out through gritted teeth. 

“I’m a big boy,” Castiel whispers, his words soft, warm puffs of air floating against the stubbled skin of Dean’s neck. His tongue darts out to taste the straining muscles stretched taut there, licking a firm line from the hollow of Dean’s throat all the way up to his ear before biting at the lobe. A full-on groan escapes Dean’s lips then, and his hands fly up to Cas’ hips, a victory as a little more of his restraint chips away and is gone. “I _ know _what I want,” Castiel continues, mouthing wetly at Dean’s jaw, the corner of his lips, the soft spot just beneath his chin. 

“Yea?” Dean manages, swallowing and sucking in deep breaths as Cas’ hips roll against his own. “I mean… _ shit,” _he swears, clearing his throat. “‘M supposed to be helping you,” he protests weakly.

Castiel pauses in his ravaging of Dean’s clothed body for a moment, searching his green eyes and drumming thoughtful fingers against the middle of his chest. “I think it would help if you’d fuck me,” he suggests, and Dean’s eyes go wide as he visibly withdraws. Dean gets a hand in between them, pressing it flat against Castiel’s chest and nudging him gently away. His eyes look a little wild.

“You’re fucking crazy if you think I’d do that to you, Cas. Not this soon. I know you think you’re all recovered, man, but that’s about the most triggering thing you can possibly imagine, just trust me on this one.” 

Raising his eyebrows, Castiel shrugs and releases Dean’s jacket from his iron grasp. “I think I should get to decide that for myself.” 

Dean takes a steadying deep breath, looking Castiel over carefully before nodding. “You’re right,” he says. “Maybe I’m projecting a little bit, so sue me.” 

“Your heart’s in the right place,” Castiel replies playfully, fingering the buttons on Dean’s flannel shirt. 

“It’s not my heart you’re thinking about shoving up your ass,” Dean mutters, looking away. “Listen, I know what you’re doing here, and I want you to know that you don’t have to. Replacing that horror show for my dick won’t magic everything better inside your head, okay?” Castiel opens his mouth to argue, but Dean holds up a hand and Castiel relents, allowing him to finish. “But I get the point, and obviously I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t interested.” Dean pauses for a moment, wiping a palm across his mouth before reaching out and bridging the gap between them. Taking Castiel’s hand in his own, Dean steps close and looks him in the eyes as he speaks. “I’m interested in _ you, _though, not just, you know,” he adds, motioning his free hand up and down the length of Castiel’s body. 

“You’re sweet.” Correctly reading that it’s his move, Castiel steps closer so that he’s got a foot in between each of Dean’s legs and they’re once again pressed chest to chest. “And against my better judgment, I’m interested in you too. But this footing we’ve gotten off on… It’s all wrong. I feel as if you view me as breakable, like something fragile that you need to protect. And I don’t want that,” he says firmly. “I don’t need it. I need... “ He trails off, fingers dancing over the dip in the middle of Dean’s chest. Castiel narrows his eyes when he looks up at Dean, unsure how to finish that sentence in a way that isn’t too aggressive, or that makes him sound insane.

“You need to take control.” Dean’s reply is a little breathy, but he holds eye contact steadily and without flinching. “Yea,” he affirms, relaxing and going pliant under Castiel’s grip, the returning sparkle in his eyes mischievous. He wraps fingers around Castiel’s hip, tugs him forward against his groin where Castiel can feel that he’s already hardening back up again. “Yea, alright, I’m on board with this. C’mon, Cas, you gonna fuck me? Show me who’s in control here?” 

Fully knowing that Dean’s goading him, Castiel’s still a complete sucker for hearing Dean ask to be fucked like that. It presses all of his buttons, and before he can think too hard about what he’s doing, he’s diving in. Ripping Dean away from the door, Castiel pushes him across the small apartment towards the hallway that leads to his bedroom. They make it about halfway there before Dean’s shit-eating smirk and smug expression has Castiel growling and pressing their lips together with the intent of kissing it away. He uses enough force that he ends up knocking Dean to the ground, but surprisingly, Dean really does go soft and yielding beneath him. Instead of moaning or playing up the drama of Castiel’s rough-ish treatment, Dean reaches up to cup the side of Castiel’s face and kiss him back gently. 

“I trust you,” he says, all wide green eyes and plain honesty. And maybe that’s why, when Castiel’s phone rings and he pulls it from his pocket to see Gabriel’s name flashing across the screen, he doesn’t answer. He tosses the phone aside and lets Dean tug him back down, licking into his mouth and pushing hands under his shirt, trying to get as close as humanly possible to this sweet, caring man. 

But Gabriel’s nothing if not persistent, and Castiel’s phone lights up a second time before pinging repeatedly with a voicemail. Castiel sighs and sits up, knees on either side of Dean’s hips as he holds up one finger apologetically and lifts the phone to his ear. “Thirty seconds,” he promises, cursing his brother and only really listening to ensure that Gabriel hasn’t landed himself in intensive care or similar. For once, Gabriel actually seems to be calling about _ him _and not something he needs Castiel’s input on fixing in his own life, but considering what he’s interrupting, Castiel couldn’t care less. 

“_ ...so pick up the phone, Cassie, I know you’re there and that something must have happened for you to take three weeks off of work. Literally nothing about that is like you…” _ Castiel shakes his head and presses a button to delete the message before Gabriel is even finished talking. _ Gabriel had his chance, _ Castiel thinks to himself. He fights down the annoyance he feels at remembering his brother’s complete inability to tell that something was _ very _ wrong back when Castiel had tried to call him for support. _ Fuck him, and fuck listening to him lecture and inevitably talk about himself. _Why would Castiel ever want to do that when he could be fucking Dean?

Suddenly remembering himself, Castiel powers off his phone and looks down at where Dean still lies staring up at him, waiting ever so patiently. 

“Everything alright?” 

Castiel just smiles softly and shakes his head. “Everything is fine,” he replies. “My brother only calls when _ he _decides he has time for me. Gabriel could do with a small taste of his own medicine.” 

Dean snorts knowingly. “Brothers,” he says agreeably. “Don’t gotta tell me twice.” 

Castiel leans down and captures Dean’s lips, drawing away slowly with a little sigh. “You are truly a saint,” he murmurs. “What did I do to deserve your patience and understanding?”

Dean looks contemplative for a moment before replying, “You did heavily imply that you were going to fuck me,” he says seriously.

“Oh, I see,” Castiel says with a laugh, leaning down to kiss him again. “It’s what I’m _ going _to do to deserve you. Well, alright then.” It’s hard to kiss with such a big smile on his face, but Dean’s fingers threading through his hair and the leg he’s got slung tightly around Cas’ hip drawing him close quickly reverts the mood to what it had been earlier. Just like that, they’re back to when Castiel had been wrapped around Dean at the club, close to ready and willing to fuck him right there, in front of anyone and everyone. 

A moan escapes Castiel’s lips as Dean’s teeth graze his collarbone and his hands make ancient history of his shirt. Castiel somehow finds the strength to push himself back and up to his feet, grabbing Dean’s hands and dragging him upright too. Dean keeps leaning in to kiss him as he pushes at his own clothes, Castiel using a hand on his waist to steer them in the direction of the bedroom as they strip. They’re naked by the time they reach it, and Dean goes from grabbing fist fulls of Castiel’s ass to sprawling out in the middle of his bed like he’s perfectly at home. Castiel can’t help but think that he _ should _be, for all the times he’s fallen asleep talking to Dean in this very spot. 

“This what you had in mind?” Dean’s tone is cheeky, but not _ quite _ cocky enough to hide the note of vulnerability floating beneath the surface. His cheeks flush, apparent shyness out of sync with the rest of the picture as he spreads his legs and wraps a hand around himself, waiting for Castiel’s approval. Climbing in between Dean’s legs and pressing their bodies together again, Castiel does his best to reassure the beautiful man who’s already given so _ much _ to him, of just how much _ better _this is, than whatever he could have imagined on his own. 

Dean rolls them onto their sides, slides a hand over Castiel’s lower back as Castiel gets one tangled in Dean’s hair. The other winds around Dean’s ribs to settle in between his shoulder blades and hold him close. Their legs tangle as their hips roll together, wet, open-mouthed kisses dissolving into tongues just tasting and brushing as one slides against the other with an increasingly unsteady rhythm. Dean’s sighs and moans are soft and needy, not at all what Castiel would have expected from his cocky persona, and while he’s not exactly submissive, he seems to enjoy the give and take of assuming and then relinquishing control. 

Eventually, Dean shoves a hand in between them, laying it flat in the middle of Castiel’s chest. His skin is warm, flushed and sweaty, his eyes twinkling and his breath coming in pants as he kisses Castiel firmly with closed lips before turning over onto his hands and knees. “Don’t want you to think less of me, but you’re really fucking hot, Cas, and this whole damn night has been one step down from edging. So if you’re still up for it, I’d _ really _like it if you’d fuck me before I end this whole thing embarrassingly early.” 

Castiel lets out an unexpected laugh and reaches to his bedside table for lube and a condom, tearing the package open as Dean twists around and catches his hand. “None of that finger shit, either,” he warns, “I wanna _ feel _ you.” Suddenly hot all over, Dean’s little declaration has Castiel fumbling with the cap on the lube, drizzling it first straight onto the bed instead of his cock. Clearly impatient, Dean’s already pushing back against him while he rushes to get sheathed and slick, and Castiel can see his hands flexing in the sheets below him. He grabs Dean’s hips and pushes in, going for slow and controlled, unprepared for Dean to _ whine _and sit back into his lap, sliding Castiel completely inside and leaving his groin flush with Dean’s ass. Having gotten what he wanted, Dean winds a hand around the back of Castiel’s head and rolls his hips, humming with pleasure. 

“Come on, Cas,” he murmurs in Castiel’s ear, his back pressing against Castiel’s own chest as Dean rides him leisurely. “_ Take control.” _

Those words send a shockwave through Castiel’s core, zinging all the way down to his toes and snapping him back to attention. _ Dean’s right, _ he thinks, and _ fuck being a passive participant, _ he’s done letting _ anyone _ use him or his body like that. Castiel shoves his way up onto his knees, dumping Dean forward onto his stomach with a little _ “Oof,” _sound. He spreads Dean’s cheeks, thumbing over his hole while Dean squirms and grunts, lining his cock up and dipping back inside him with a groan. 

Doing his best to push back up onto all fours, Dean moans when Castiel presses a firm hand to the middle of his upper back and neck, keeping him face down with his ass up as he thrusts into him. 

“Oh, _ fuck,” _Dean grunts. “Yea, Cas, give it to me.” His words are half-muffled by the comforter next to his mouth, but Castiel gets the hint and grins, throwing his full weight into fucking him hard and fast. The force of his thrusts pushes Dean up the bed until his head is bumping against the wall, and this time Castiel doesn’t stop him as he claws his way to vertical. He lets him, and then follows Dean forward to press him bodily against the wall. Castiel reaches between Dean’s legs, spreading his thighs as wide as they’ll go and pressing teasing touches to the sensitive skin between his balls and hole. Dean’s head drops back from the wall onto his shoulder and the litany of mumbled words that flow from his mouth are completely nonsensical, which pleases Castiel to no end. He wraps a hand across Dean’s forehead to hold him there, his other jerking his cock until he’s shuddering and coming in violent splashes across Cas’ light blue walls. 

After working Dean through his orgasm and beyond, Castiel adjusts his grip on him to one arm across his abdomen and the other holding just below his chin, his sated body basically a ragdoll in Castiel’s arms. Dean moans and shivers as he’s fucked and manhandled, Castiel coming hard and heavy inside of him with abandon. It feels deliciously, _ freeingly _ perfect, at least until Castiel’s gently moving Dean to the mattress, rolling them over and sliding out of him.

“Oh shit,” Castiel mutters, mostly to himself as he gingerly tries to unwrap what’s left of the latex from around his softening dick. It’s all ripped up the side and his cum is everywhere, leaking and dripping down Dean’s thigh and everything. “Dean, I’m so sorry,” he says, holding the broken condom up guiltily.

“Whassat?” Dean slurs with his eyes half-open, clearly reluctant to drag himself out from the pleasant post-orgasm fog. He blinks sleepily up at Castiel, his hand drifting down between his legs as realization sets in behind those hazy green eyes. “Blech,” he mumbles, burying his face into Castiel’s pillow. “You’re cleaning that up.” 

Castiel just sits there, a little stunned that Dean isn’t more upset, but also fairly relieved. Still, he’s concerned, and unwilling to ignore the potential ramifications here. “Dean,” he says urgently, pushing at Dean’s shoulder. “I haven’t… those men, they could have given me something.” A wave of shame washes over him unwittingly, and he shrinks back from Dean’s side, just a little. Grumbling, Dean shoves his way out from the mound of bedding, his hair sticking up all ways and his eyes still tired. 

“Cas,” he says with a yawn, pushing himself up to lean back against the wall. “It’s no big deal, okay? Shit happens. This can’t be the first time you’ve busted a condom.” Castiel just stares at him blankly. “Oh… really? Alright, well, let me be the first to tell you then, that it _ happens. _I ain’t mad, if that’s what you’re worried about.” He opens his arms, but Castiel hesitates. 

“I should have been more responsible, should have gotten tested before we--” 

Dean snorts. “Shut the hell up, Cas. If you’ve got something and I’ve got something, then we’ll deal with it together, no big. We’ll go and get tested at the same time. It’ll be like, the worst second date ever.”  
  
Unable to hold back the small laugh that bubbles its way out of his throat at that, Castiel relents and lets Dean pull him down into the bed. On the way down, though, he’s swiftly reminded by his knee in the wet spot that he hasn’t actually _ cleaned _anything, so he pushes up and darts away to the bathroom to grab a wet washcloth. When they’re both a lot less sticky and gross, Castiel finally slides in beside Dean, grabbing his comforter and kicking his way underneath before tucking it up and around both of them. He pulls Dean into his chest and squeezes, grateful once again for what feels like endless understanding and compassion from the man in his arms. 

After a few moments of silence where Castiel noses shamelessly in Dean’s hair and gently strokes the skin at the nape of his neck, he ventures to ask a question. “So… does that mean tonight counts as our first date?” 

Dean laughs softly where his face is pressed into Castiel’s pec, lips brushing accidentally over a nipple. “Sure, Cas,” he says. “Best first date ever, if you’re askin’ me.”

“That seems unlikely.”

“You bought me bar food, I watched you take your clothes off for other men, you fucked me stupid up against a wall. What’s not to love?”

“This is a very low bar we’re setting,” Castiel observes, and Dean picks up his head for just long enough to peck Castiel on the mouth and wink.

“Don’t worry so much ‘bout what other people think, or what your brain says you’re _ supposed _to feel,” Dean tells him as he snuggles back down into his side. “We’re, you know, makin’ this thing up as we go. Nobody matters but us.” 

“Nobody matters but us,” Castiel repeats, liking the way Dean’s words sound coming out of his mouth. 

_ Us. Dean wants there to be an us. _

It’s a good feeling.

***

Castiel doesn’t recover his phone from the living room floor or turn it back on until well into the next afternoon. Since falling asleep with Dean turns into waking up with Dean, which turns into _ showering _ and lazy blowjobs with Dean, something as trivial as the status of his phone doesn’t even cross his mind. Especially because not once does Castiel feel triggered or uncomfortable, only cared for and… _ dare he think it? Happy. _ Dean cooks breakfast at one in the afternoon and Castiel learns how he takes his coffee. That’s another strange moment that feels like something he should already know, since how many times have they shared a cup over the phone? To his own shock, Castiel finds himself looking for excuses for Dean to _ stay. _ Even more so, scouring Dean’s words and behavior for signs that he might want to have a conversation about seeing each other again, perhaps even on some sort of regular basis. 

Heart thumping in his chest, as Dean leans in over their lukewarm mugs to steal what feels like the thousandth kiss since waking, Castiel lets his eyes drift closed and presses back gently. He sighs when Dean pulls away, knowing full well that there’s a stupid grin on his face. Though perhaps he shouldn’t be feeling _ quite _as embarrassed since Dean’s blatantly sporting the other half of a matching set. 

Eventually, Dean’s the one who breaks the spell that’s set in over their little bubble, powering on his own phone where it’s attached to the wall via Castiel’s charger. “Sam,” he says apologetically, by way of explanation, and Castiel nods his understanding, finding his own device and pressing the button to turn it back on. As soon as he does, he realizes that something is wrong. Popping up on his screen are notifications upon notifications of missed calls and voicemails, all from local numbers. According to the timestamps, the onslaught began shortly after he and Dean had arrived home and continued throughout the early morning, when they abruptly stopped. With a feeling of dread settling into the pit of his stomach, Castiel lifts the phone to his ear, only digesting snippets of each message as they cycle through.

_ “...listed as her emergency contact, critical condition…” _

_ “...have any information on next-of-kin, it’s urgent…” _

_ “...Mr. Novak, if you could give us a call as soon as possible…” _

_ “...want to inform you in this manner, but…” _

_ “...Ms. Master’s body has been released to the morgue. She’ll need someone to claim her within seventy-two hours, or she’ll be cremated by the city. If you could give us a call... “ _

The last message is from Crowley. “Castiel.” A long pause. “Something’s happened.” 

There’s static in Castiel’s ears when he drops the phone back to the table, a steady ringing that drowns out Dean’s concerned, _ “Cas? Cas!” _ Dean’s hands on his shoulders feel like he’s touching someone else, as if Castiel is a million miles away and this is _ not happening. _

It’s not happening. 

“Meg is dead,” he says bluntly, and despite Dean wrapping him up in his arms, the tears don’t come. Because if the tears come, then the news is true. _ It _ can’t _ be true _ , he thinks. It’s a mistake _ , _ surely, but he’ll clear everything up just as soon as he gets to the hospital. Someone stole Meg’s ID, or it’s another girl who just _ looks _ like her, or it’s all one big, crazy misunderstanding, Castiel’s sure of it. He just needs Dean to give him a ride and then they’ll see, and Meg is going to _ laugh _ her ass off when he tells her about all of this, she will. Then she’ll give him a high five for scoring with Dean, make fun of him for catching _ feelings, _ and insist on giving his new friend the third degree. 

_ Perhaps all three of us could have dinner later tonight, _ Castiel thinks distractedly. Meg will undoubtedly approve of Dean because he’s hot, and Dean will enjoy her sense of humor. _ Yes, _ he decides. _ That’s what we’ll do. Right after we make this silly trip to straighten things out. _

But that’s not how it goes, of course. Castiel can’t remember much of getting dressed or riding in Dean’s car or following the overweight security guard’s directions to the morgue. The mortician’s voice and face are all a hazy blur only seconds after she walks away, though he does notice that the room is cold enough to make his skin goose-pimple. _ Meg hates that word. Goose-pimple. _ Somehow he ends up wearing Dean’s jacket. 

There’s a glass window in between where he and Dean are and the room with all the tiny doors. So strange, the idea of little cabinets for people who aren’t using their bodies anymore, storage that’s more suitable to luggage than a _ person _. Castiel stares anywhere and at anything besides the cabinet currently being opened and emptied of its contents.

It takes Dean three verbal attempts plus a rough shake of his hands on Castiel’s shoulders to snap him back to the present. He must have really been out of it, because the body’s in front of them now, just one thin pane of glass away. Castiel swallows against his desert-dry throat and forces himself to look. The doctor gives him a nod and takes hold of the clean white sheet being used as a drape, perfunctorily folding it back to reveal the head and torso of the body lying supine on the table. 

_ Supine. _ That’s a word Castiel learned in massage therapy class back when he was eighteen years old, back when he thought stripping would be a temporary career, a means to an end. _ Supine means face up, _ he thinks distractedly. _ Prone means face down. The body on the table is face-up _ , he notes, though it hardly even looks like a person, closer to a wax figure, really. By some automatic reflex, his eyes travel over all the visible parts of the supposed _ person _ in front of him, cataloging everything he can see. _ It’s not Meg, _he reminds himself again, although, as he’s standing here, Castiel discovers that he’s suddenly not quite as sure. 

He shakes that thought off. _ The sooner you look, the sooner you’ll see, it’s not her. _

_ Why didn’t she answer her phone then? _Castiel scowls at his traitorous brain’s intrusion. All the same, he steadily refuses to press “Call” on his phone screen again, out of the pure fear that the bag labeled “Patient Belongings” sitting innocuously atop the body’s legs will start ringing.

_ Brown, wavy hair. Incredibly pale skin, so devoid of color it doesn’t seem as if it could possibly belong to a human. Soft, pouty lips, equally pale. A tattoo on her right arm that Castiel was there to watch her get. _

_ That tattoo parlor had smelled like ass. _

“You don’t want to get a tattoo from a place that smells like _ ass, _Meg,” Castiel scoffs, but Meg just throws her head back and laughs, cheeks rosy, brown eyes shining with amusement. Castiel grins back, can’t help it, Meg’s laughter has always been contagious that way. She’s got a way of sucking him in, making him feel enthusiasm he otherwise couldn’t feel for himself. He’s always loved her a little bit more for that. Meg plops down in the artist’s chair without a second thought, slaps the tracing over the prepared spot on her arm herself, and leans back confidently. Her short blond hair is mussed from where Castiel had earlier tried to make it stick up in a hawk to match his own, unsuccessful as it were. 

“Does it look that fucked up?” Meg’s staring at him pointedly and Castiel realizes he’s been lost in thought.

“No, of course not,” Castiel replies, working on giving her his most sincere, serious face, all the while knowing he isn’t remotely pulling it off. Meg sighs.

“I’m dying it back tomorrow,” she says. “Ooh, or maybe blue!” 

“Customers won’t like blue,” Castiel tells her automatically, his attention drawn to a display case full of sparkly jewelry. He fingers a nipple ring and half-heartedly considers it. “Pixie cuts are one thing, some men dig the tomboy look, but Crowley says colors like blue intimidate men.” 

“Crowley’s a moron,” Meg replies with a roll of her eyes. “And fuck him, he doesn’t own us. That why you won’t pierce your lip? Because _ Crowley _told you not to?” Castiel shrugs and averts his eyes, now eyeing up a stud with a big, black crystal he’d just about kill to wear in the dip below his mouth. Meg isn’t wrong. “C’mon, Cas,” she goads him, humor in her eyes and a dare on her lips. He looks back down at the piercing, considering, a smile playing at the corner of his mouth. Meg gets out of the chair and comes to stand in front of him, touching his shoulder lightly. “Is this her?” Her voice is different somehow, tinged with something Castiel can’t quite place when she asks him her question.

“Huh?” He replies articulately, blinking as he raises his chin to look her in the eyes. 

“Is this her?” She asks again as Castiel stares, not understanding. 

“Cas,” Dean says softly, and Castiel turns his head to the side to acknowledge him. With that, the world tilts and dissolves, the tattoo parlor vanishing and re-materializing as the nightmare realm he quickly realizes he never actually left. He squeezes his eyes shut and rubs them with the heels of his hands. When he looks up again, Dean’s still there, squeezing his shoulder and looking down at him with unmasked concern. Castiel finds himself nodding curtly, succinctly, and with no emotion towards the lab coat clad woman standing in front of him who is definitely _ not _Meg. He gestures to the woman lying on the table behind her, who is. Castiel swallows thickly as everyone continues to stare at him. They must need something more.

“That’s her,” he grits out roughly, his voice cracking around the second word. “Her name is Meg Masters.” The floodgates open after that, and he crumples to the floor in hysterics, Dean and his strong, comforting arms close behind. 

***

Arrangements for Meg can hardly even be called such. Castiel found out quickly that she had no family to speak of and very few friends that he could even track down. He’d always known that Meg was somewhat of a loner, an independent, free spirit who claimed to have been raised in foster care and “_ by my own damn self, _” way back when they’d first met. Castiel had never questioned any of that, just accepted everything she was unconditionally, in the same manner that she accepted him. In a lot of ways, they couldn’t have been more different, but somehow they’d become each other’s rocks in an unsteady, unforgiving world. 

All of that is gone now, reduced to a pile of ashes poured into a stainless steel urn that was all Castiel could really afford. Between coffins and burial plots, a real funeral would have run him upwards of twenty thousand dollars. While he _ wishes _ he could have given that to Meg, Castiel simply didn’t have the means, and the friends of hers he’d located weren’t any better off. So cremation and an urn it was, followed by Castiel and Dean driving to the shore and scattering her ashes out off the pier and into the ocean. Castiel had felt guilty, but Dean mentioned that from what he’d heard about Meg, she’d probably rather be free and blowing in the wind. Somehow, Castiel had found that strangely _ right _ and reassuring as hell. After saying a few words, the two of them had sat together on the end of the pier for a _ long _time, Dean with his arm around Castiel’s shoulder, silent and supportive. Not once did he complain about the chill or the discomfort of the hard wood, or try and rush him along in any way.

If there was one bright spot to come out of all of this, it was Dean.

Castiel knows full well that he’s emotionally vulnerable, that losing Meg has likely made him prone to seeking connection and comfort in ways he would normally be more guarded about. But by that same token, losing Meg has also made him want to throw caution to the wind, to grab hold of Dean and make sure that he _ knows _that the last thing Castiel wants is for him to leave. 

And so, three nights after they scatter Meg’s ashes, one day before Castiel returns to work for the second time following a tragedy, and for the seventh consecutive night in a row Dean has spent in Castiel’s bed, holding him tight and drying his tears, he tells him so.

“Are you askin’ me to be your boyfriend, Cas?” Dean’s tone is playful and a little shy, the small half-smile on his face glowing in the dim light of the bedside table lamp. Castiel finds himself overwhelmed with how desperately he wants Dean to say yes.

“I know that it’s soon, that we’ve been moving quickly, but--_ Mmmph _,” Castiel says as Dean cuts off what unquestionably would have become a rambling mess with a firm kiss and a hand slid up and over his jaw. He smiles against Castiel’s lips and sighs into his mouth with obvious happiness.

“Thought you’d never ask, sweetheart,” he replies once they’ve both gotten their breath back. Castiel watches as Dean licks his lips, tongue darting out as if he can’t get enough of tasting Castiel on them, and he would be outright lying if he said that look on Dean wasn’t _ extremely _appealing. Without the hesitation and sadness that’s been marring his decisions and his willingness to touch Dean over the past several days, he leans in and pulls the other man down on top of him. For the first time in over a week, Castiel allows himself briefly to stop thinking about Meg. 

_ Thank God for Dean, _ he thinks with relief. _ His rock, his savior. _

_ Dean cares about him. Dean isn’t going anywhere. _


	3. Part 2: Sirius

_Dean_

The Winchester brothers' current home base is a converted loft on the third and highest floor of a building not far from the strip club where Castiel works. Dean pushes open the heavy sliding door and tugs it closed behind him, stretching lazily as he gazes about the airy, open space. For how industrial it might appear at first glance, the loft is also reasonably comfortable and homey, surprisingly so, considering who its occupants are. But let no one say that Dean can’t be a homemaker if he wants to be, other interests be damned. 

"Sammy?" He calls, his voice seeming to echo off of the pipes and ductwork crisscrossing the vaulted ceiling. "You here?" There’s no answer, but Sam's room is also tucked away on the second floor, way in the back corner of the loft and up a set of wrought-iron stairs. Dean's room, on the other hand, is right off to the side of the front door, conveniently located in case of any attempted home invaders, poor saps. His space is enclosed on all sides, creating a box inside the larger room, a house within a house so to speak. There’s a bedroom and a full bath inside, and the whole thing is set off to the side and across from the open kitchen. It’s the only part of the renovated apartment that’s off-limits to Sam, and he knows not to enter without permission. And while Sam doesn’t explicitly ask for it, Dean gives him the same courtesy in return. So instead of seeking his maybe-absent brother out, Dean opts to fling his jacket inside his room and onto his bed, closing the door again behind him before making his way to the area that passes as a living space instead. He pulls out his phone before flopping down on one of the second-hand couches. 

Their space isn't anything particularly fancy, but it's home, at least for the time being. Dean looks around regretfully, he supposes he’ll miss this place when they inevitably have to move, but he knows better than to let himself grow attached. He checks that train of thought quickly. Their father taught both him and Sam better than that. To allow affection for  _ places  _ and  _ things,  _ to foster any need or desire for particular  _ people,  _ to even consider putting down roots… Any of that would be suicide. That’s what Dean’s always been told, and it’s served him well all these years. His thoughts flicker briefly to Cas, but Dean drives that notion down and away, burying it under layer upon layer of self-defense. Someone like Dean will never be able to keep any of those things, so best not to dwell on it. He’s lucky, really he is. He should just be glad that he’s got a brother who’s with him ‘til the end,  _ roots  _ and all that other bullshit be damned. 

Interrupting his mild bout of self-reflection, Dean’s phone buzzes in his hand and he looks down at it. Swiping it open, he finds a picture of Castiel in the locker room at work, naked except for those sparkly white panties Dean’s come to favor, despite what they’ve been through. Dean’s cock twitches in his pants, and he wonders vaguely if Sam has any visitors, if it’s worth the potential invasion of his privacy to go check. Strangely though, as his thoughts shift from  _ fucking Castiel  _ to  _ fucking some random chick,  _ his interest wanes almost immediately. Dean frowns, and zooms in on the picture in his hand, focusing on the pretty curve of Castiel’s ass and the obvious bulge in the front of his tiny shorts until his dick comes back online. 

_ Hmm. Interesting.  _

His phone pings again and it’s another image of Cas from yet another angle, one that has Dean deciding that Cas is definitely worth the wait. He’ll just stop by the club later tonight and play protective boyfriend, get laid for his troubles. 

Not that  _ protective boyfriend  _ is a complete lie, not really, not anymore. Dean’s thoughts darken as he thinks about watching Cas give a lapdance to that handsy  _ Bart  _ asshole two nights ago. He chews his thumbnail and considers his options. It’s been over a month since the whole Meg thing, and Cas is still clingy as ever, so things are going exactly according to plan in that respect. But Cas is also back to work and confident enough in his safety that he’s since stopped asking for an escort, leaving Dean to quickly run out of excuses for hanging around at the club during Cas’ shifts. The best he can do is pop in towards the end of the night and scope out the crowd in the name of “watching his back.” Anything more than that would be bound to ping Cas’ radar as  _ too much.  _ Plus, it hasn’t even been a week since he took out Cole, Dean knows he’s gotta pace himself if he wants to see this thing with Cas through and not end up in silver bracelets. 

Not that  _ Cole’s  _ death even registered on the idiot cops in this town’s suspic-o-meters, and isn’t that part of Dean’s problem? There’s no damn  _ thrill  _ to sticking a gun in someone’s mouth and pulling the trigger, leaving a lame suicide note citing some boring-ass sob story no one will even question. Where’s the fun supposed to be in that?  _ Almost wasn’t worth it, _ Dean thinks derisively. His fingers still tingle, the ache in his gut that drives him to slice and dice hardly satiated. The entirety of his body still calls for  _ more,  _ for blood and pain and violence, not whatever puzzle piece mind-fuck  _ part of the grand plan  _ fucking  _ Cole  _ ended up being. Sighing out loud, Dean’s thoughts drift briefly to Zachariah and the feeling that came along with stuffing that miserable prick’s cock down his own throat. Now  _ that  _ was some goddamn poetry.  _ That  _ was bottled satisfaction. 

Lost in thought and still staring hungrily at Cas’ mostly-naked body on display via his phone screen, Dean finds himself caught off guard when a hand clamps down on his shoulder. The surprise contact has the unfortunate effect of making him jump at least a foot off the couch and worse,  _ squeak _ . He comes back down with one of his own hands slapping across the middle of his chest, breathing hard and glaring, wishing his eyes were lasers. The object of his disgust? Nearly seven-feet of Sasquatch towering over the back of the couch, wearing a shit-eating grin plastered across his face.

“Yuck it up,” Dean grumbles. “You get one of those a year. Next time, I take your head off.” 

“As if you could function without me,” Sam scoffs, making his way towards the kitchen to where Dean now sees a scantily clad Ruby is standing, also grinning at him.  _ Great.  _

“You’re bad for my rep, Sammy,” he grouses, eyes flicking down to the hem of Ruby’s little black dress to where it barely covers the tops of her thighs. “I like your outfit, Rue,” Dean says, biting the back of his fist and wiggling his eyebrows suggestively. As he speaks, Sam surfaces from where his face has been buried in the side of her neck, though Dean notes that he doesn’t remove his hand from between her legs. Dean sits up a little straighter on the couch and pockets his phone. “This gonna be a group activity?” 

Sam snorts. “As if you could,” he says, turning Ruby bodily towards the door and slapping her ass as she steps through it. “Make me proud,” he tells her, leaning in for a kiss before she walks away. 

“Party pooper,” Dean pouts. “And what’s that supposed to mean, ‘as if you could’? You questioning my manhood, little brother?” Sam shoots him a sideways look as he wanders back towards the fridge and pulls out a sparkling water and a salad, the kind you get from the produce aisle at the supermarket, the yuppie freak. “C’mon Sam, don’t eat that shit. Let’s order pizza.” 

“Burritos in the fridge for you, thank Ruby later,” Sam replies, settling down in an overstuffed armchair catty-corner from Dean. “And no, I’m not…  _ questioning your manhood,  _ I’m just saying that you’re a little bitch and you’re whipped.” He speaks so casually that Dean has to blink and run the words through his head several times before they fully process.

“ _ Excuse  _ me?” 

“Face it, Dean. Ever since you stumbled on Cas, he’s all you care about. You’re over there every night, you haven’t fucked anyone else in weeks, you ditch me constantly, you don’t let me in on your plans…” Sam shrugs, clearly trying to play nonchalant, but his aversion to eye contact and his pressured tone sell him out immediately. 

“Aww, Sammy, don’t be like that. If it means that much to you, we’ll fuck Ruby together later. Would you like that? It’ll be fun.” Dean settles back into the couch and swipes open his phone again because  _ two can play at this faux-casual game.  _ He resolutely does not think about what’ll happen if Sam takes him up on his offer, because  _ fuck  _ if he’s going to admit Sam is right. 

Sam is never right. Fuck Sam. 

“So… where’d she go, anyway? Get her back here,” Dean adds because he’s a stubborn fucking asshole who doesn’t know when to stop digging holes. 

But Sam just huffs a short laugh and drops his fork into his salad. “She’s got a drop,” he tells him. “But Dean, that’s not the point. We’re  _ brothers.  _ You’ve always said that you and I come first. You’re not acting like yourself, and honestly? I’m not sure that I like it. At the very least, you’re keeping things from me. You’re not  _ just  _ fucking Cas, are you?” 

Dean sits stunned for a moment, grappling for something to say and coming up empty. He could flat out deny how into Cas he is, but he doubts Sam would believe it. He’s clearly been stewing over this for a while, now. He could be honest, admit to Sam how he secretly wants his own  _ Ruby  _ and how he thinks just  _ maybe  _ Cas has that kind of potential, but that’s a lot of talking and  _ feelings  _ for Dean, and… yea, no. He licks his lips as Sam waits for a reply, but can’t seem to put together anything more convincing than some wide-eyed blinking and an unconvincing shrug. 

He gets it, though, and Sam isn’t wrong, not that he’ll say so out loud. It's always been just Dean and Sam, Sam and Dean, for as long as he can remember. Even back when Mary Winchester was alive, the two of them had always been perpetually uninterested in other children, shunning even the  _ idea  _ of friends in favor of entertaining and caring for each other. And after Mary had died and John had deteriorated into the drunken mess of alcohol and violence that he usually was, that bond between them had only cinched tighter. Just the two of them,  _ always _ , sharing everything and denying each other nothing. And eventually, after those few intervening years where John had cottoned on to Dean’s nature and sobered up enough to hand down all his best tips and tricks to keep him wild and free, Sam had stood by his side as he’d taken John out. 

They’d dug his grave and buried his body side-by-side with not a tear shed between them, and nothing had changed in the years since. Men and women came and went, but those were never anything more than a bit of fun, certainly nothing approaching something so important as  _ family _ . Even Ruby, who comes with them when they up and leave, and who Dean knows Sam loves in his own way, would be dead in a heartbeat by Sam’s own hand if the choice were between her and Dean. 

So Dean can understand why Sam is pissed, why he's so determined to needle and press, to try and get Dean to admit out loud that Castiel is more than just a piece of ass to him. And likewise, it’s the very same reason as to why Dean, in turn, feels the need to dig in so stubbornly in the opposite direction. Clearly, this isn't an argument either of them is going to win, and the only option is compromise. Honest conversation.

But that’s easier said than done, and Dean Winchester’s bullshit pride and ego has his mouth opening and closing like a fish while Sam glares him down.  _ Sam is fucking right,  _ he thinks woefully.  _ I am a little bitch.  _

Their silent standoff continues until Sam seems to get bored and goes back to eating his salad. In true younger brother fashion, he lets Dean flounder, knowing perfectly well that he’s not capable of just leaving things this way between them. And yet, Dean still can’t decide what it is Sam wants to hear, what it is that he should even say.

"You could just share him," Sam suggests eventually around a mouthful of lettuce, like he’s proposing they have tacos for dinner. Dean balks, but  _ of course,  _ he can't think of one damn good reason to say no. Besides the fact that Sam is fucking right about his stupid feelings, anyway.  _ Goddammit.  _ The thought of Sam balls deep in Cas is enough to make him fucking hurl. 

“That shit doesn’t go both ways, you know that,” Dean mutters, hoping the fact that what he’s saying is  _ true  _ will be the end of it. 

Sam rolls his eyes and wipes his mouth and hands on a napkin. “So, I’ll fuck him and you’ll cut him loose. Shouldn’t be a big deal if he doesn’t mean anything to you,” he challenges, looking at Dean pointedly.

Dean grabs a pillow and hugs it to his stomach, relocating his gaze to the ceiling. “Anyway, Cas ain’t even let me fuck him yet, so, good luck with that, if you wanna try. Hope you bought lube, pretty sure there’s a cucumber in the fridge if you wanna practice.” He lets at least a full minute of silence go by before he realizes his mistake.  _ Shit.  _ It certainly didn’t get past Sam.

“Are you telling me… that you’ve been letting Cas fuck  _ you  _ this whole time?” Dean chances a glance down and regrets it immediately when he takes in Sam’s astonished face.

“What?” He says defensively, hugging the pillow tighter. “Don’t judge me. I do that sometimes.”

“ _ Sometimes  _ being the key word, Dean.” Sam runs a hand through his ridiculously shaggy hair before sinking back into his chair, salad forgotten. “Shit. This is more serious than I thought.” 

“Oh, come on, Samantha,” Dean scoffs. “Don’t you think you’re being a little dramatic?” 

“No, I think  _ you  _ are being a secretive asshole, and you’re putting all of us at risk. You get invested, you get sloppy, you  _ know  _ that. Attachments don’t work for you, Dean, we’ve been down that road before.” 

He’s talking about Lisa, of course, who by all accounts, should have been it for Dean. Not that he'd loved her. No, until Cas came along he hadn't even thought he was capable of feeling anything besides lust for someone other than Sammy. No, it was more that Lisa was... accommodating. She didn't ask questions, didn't prod too deeply into what made Dean tick, and for that reason, she'd been useful to keep around. Other girls wanted things from him; commitment, openness, honestly. They'd poked and prodded at him until his  _ honesty _ came spilling out in the form of his favorite past time, the thing that really made him tick. Broken and bleeding as they hung screaming from the ceiling of his kill room, none of them had seemed to like it when he finally gave them what they'd asked for. 

But Lisa was different. Less pushy, didn't seem to give one single fuck if Dean wasn't the "settling down" or "share his feelings" type, and for that reason, they'd lasted. A hell of a lot longer than he would have guessed, even. 

And if Sam hadn't gone sticking his dick where it didn't belong, maybe they would have lasted forever. As it was, Dean loved his little brother, but he didn't do sloppy seconds with his own conquests. And for that reason, Lisa had to die.

He supposes it all worked out in the end, though. Because now? He has Cas. Not that he’s about to admit that to the self-righteous asshole masquerading as his brother lounging smugly across from him. 

Dean sits up and points a finger at Sam accusingly. “That ain’t fair and you know it. My memory ain’t that bad, and it says the problem with  _ Lisa  _ was that  _ you  _ took something without askin’. And because of that, we all ended up having to pack up and move across the country. I was holding things down in Cicero. Me an’ Lisa had a good thing going ‘til you had to go and put your big moose dick where no one invited it."

Sam just folds his hands across his stomach and smirks. “Lisa sure as hell invited it,” he says. Dean chucks the pillow he’s holding at Sam’s face and glares.

“OK, no one who  _ matters,  _ Sam.” 

“Point stands,” Sam replies, turning his hands palm-side up as if he thinks his point is making itself, Dean’s opinion be damned. “And anyway, it was  _ your  _ choice to kill Lisa.” 

“Really wasn’t,” Dean argues, but Sam waves him off.

“It still proves what I’m saying. Cas  _ clearly  _ means more to you than she did, and Lisa was the closest I’ve ever seen you get to normal.”

“Yea, well. You and me? Neither of us is normal. Normal ain’t in the cards for us.”

“Alright, fine. So cut ties with this guy. Let’s move, I’m cool with it. It’s just as hard for me to stay in one place for too long, anyway. People get wise, I have to start actually laundering money instead of just spending it. Too much fuckin’ work. I like it simple; Az gets me the drugs, I sell ‘em. Period, done. So what do you say? You in for a new start?” 

Dean stalls for time by shaking his head in what he hopes is equal parts vertical and horizontal. When he looks over at Sam again, he knows he should be less surprised to see the  _ gotcha  _ smirk stretching across his face.  _ Why the fuck is he so off his game?  _ “Shit,” Dean mutters, wiping the back of a hand across his mouth.

“What  _ would  _ you do, Dean?” Sam presses, “If I came home and told you that I fucked Cas? Put him on his knees and shoved my cock down his throat?” He leans forward, close enough for Dean to feel his hot breath on his cheek. The muscle in Dean’s jaw jumps where it’s clenched and  _ damn him,  _ that fucker knows  _ exactly  _ what he’s doing. “What would you do if I bent him over, spread his cheeks, and fucked that tight little hole until he screamed? Maybe I could record it so you could watch later, see him come with my hand on his cock. And all that before you even got anywhere near it? What would you  _ do  _ Dean?” 

Dean struggles hard to maintain a neutral expression and not blurt out  _ “I’d cut your fucking balls off, asshole _ ,” but it’s a close thing. As such, he’s beginning to wonder why exactly he’s still fighting so hard being honest with Sammy. It’s not as if Dean doesn’t trust him, as if he isn’t fully aware that Sam is the  _ one  _ person in the entire universe who has  _ never  _ judged him. And is that the problem? Is he afraid of being  _ judged?  _ Is that what this all comes down to, what it’s really about? If so, it fucking sucks, holy shit. Dean can hardly help but wonder how normal people deal with having these sort of feelings all the time. 

Unfortunately, the idea of Sam fucking Cas sucks a  _ lot  _ more than the idea of being judged, at least in Dean’s opinion. And Dean wouldn’t put it past him, either. Sam might be messing with him now, but Dean knows his brother well enough to be sure that Sam will follow through if he doesn’t nut up and give him what he wants.

“Does Cas matter?”

“Huh?” Admittedly, Dean had zoned out a little, and he wasn’t quite following Sam’s conversational shift.

“Cas,” Sam clarifies. “You said Lisa didn’t matter. Does Cas?” 

“You know he doesn’t,” Dean replies immediately, reflexively. “Nobody matters but you an’ me.” 

“Uh-huh, right,” Sam snarks. “That’s why you’re going to  _ all  _ this trouble just to bag some ass.  _ And  _ you won’t share,  _ and  _ you’re lying to my face like I’m five and you’re trying to convince me those girl presents under the tree were from Dad.” 

Dean scrubs a hand through his hair in frustration. “Just shut the hell up and let it go already. It’s a  _ really  _ sweet ass.” 

“You have  _ feelings  _ for this guy!”

“I don’t  _ have  _ any feelings to  _ have,  _ Sam.” 

“Let me fuck him, then.”

“Wear my dirty underwear for a week and then we’ll talk.” 

Sam’s nose scrunches up and Dean feels a wave of satisfaction.  _ Dean - 1; Sam - 1000.  _ “That’s fucking disgusting, Dean.” 

“Yea?” Dean shoots back, “Well, that’s how I feel every time I put my dick someplace you’ve already been.”

“You fuck Ruby all the time, and  _ everyone  _ else she and I bring home, how is that fair?”

“I’m the big brother, Sam. Life isn’t fair. And you could tell me no. You could make Ruby off-limits, or the random boys and girls she drags in here.” Dean shrugs. “I don’t tell you how to live your life, Sammy boy, don’t try and tell me how to live mine.”

Sam tosses him the most epic bitchface this conversation has provoked yet. “And that would be  _ fine,  _ Dean, if you weren’t leaving me in the dark with your plans.” In a rare display of willingness to listen, Sam softens, and Dean automatically perks up. This must mean a lot to him if he’s willing to give Dean some room, at least as far as owning up to his bullshit goes. It’s silence between them as Dean waits and Sam chews the inside of his cheek thoughtfully. “I’m just asking you to let me  _ in,  _ Dean,” he finally says. “It’s important, especially if you’re, like, thinking about bringing Castiel into this for real. How can I have your back if you don’t include me in your plans? Who’s gonna look out for you, for me?”

“ _ I  _ look out for you. And I include you,” Dean insists petulantly. “I let you sell the stripper friend the laced coke. Soon as I realized she needed taken out, handed that right off to you.  _ Never  _ say I don’t give you anything.” He raises his eyebrows and cocks his head. “Nice touch, by the way, getting the drugs to her through one of my marks. No one thought anything of Meg being dead in the bathroom with a customer, and I didn’t have to dispose of the dude’s body. Shit, I don’t think Cas even realized the guy she was found with was one of the dudes who jumped him.” Dean frowns. “Well anyway, they both had to be taken out.”

Sam just rolls his eyes. “And why exactly  _ did  _ she need to be taken out? Come on, Dean. You, what? Thought I wouldn’t put two plus two together? How do you think I knew your intentions regarding Castiel without you ever saying anything?” 

“My intentions.” Dean snorts. “What is this, the 1800s?” 

“You’ve been isolating him from the start, I’m not stupid Dean. That wasn’t a random hit, you killed his only friend.”

“ _ You  _ killed his only friend. I was just fucking with him,” Dean protests, but it’s weak and he knows it. Sam raises his eyebrows and Dean relents because someone has to or they’re gonna be here all goddamn night. “Yea, fine, you got me. Worked though,” he adds with a grin, miming shooting a basketball into a hoop. “Like a fuckin’ charm, nothin’ but net.” 

“Not the point, Dean. Listen, man, I’m happy for you if you’re sure this is what you want. But I need to know that you’re  _ sure  _ about Cas, and hiding him from me doesn’t exactly convey confidence. You’re bringing him into my life too, you know. And Ruby’s.” 

_ Fuck Ruby,  _ Dean thinks but wisely doesn’t say it. He takes a deep breath and lets it out, looking Sam over carefully. “You’re right,” he finally cops. “Much as that pains me to admit. But Sam, you gotta trust me. There’s something about Cas… He’s one of us, I fuckin’ know it. I just… I gotta press the right buttons. Ever since I saw him in that grocery store--”

“Oh, yea, and that didn’t have  _ anything  _ to do with him drooling all over your car,” Sam interrupts.

Dean laughs and shrugs. “Didn’t hurt,” he agrees cheekily. “But you know that I watched him. I hung out at that club for weeks. Followed him, learned his routines, his schedule… I’m  _ telling  _ you, Sam, he’s  _ dark.  _ It’s in there, I can feel it.” He risks a glance in Sam’s direction, expecting more skepticism or at least concern, but surprisingly, Sam’s got a soft smile on his face.

“I trust you,” is all he says, and Dean resists the urge to check out the window for flying pigs. “Anyone else would think you’re crazy, but…” Sam’s eyes drift over to the doorway Ruby left out of. “I mean, you trusted me when I found Ruby.” Dean nods, serious for once. He pushes up so that he isn’t drowning in the cushions and props his elbows on his thighs. 

“I can’t explain it, Sam. He feels like he’s mine.” 

“Explain something to me, though,” Sam counters, and Dean opens his hands, willing. “No judgment, but I can’t imagine doing to Ruby what you did to Cas. I would have found another way. Honestly, that whole thing is why I waited so long to even  _ have  _ this conversation. I really thought you were just getting more perverted in your old age.”

“Fuck you, Sammy,” Dean replies, but it’s good-natured this time. He sighs though and shakes his head. “No, I get it. That was pretty fucked up, and if anything keeps me from sealing this deal, it’ll be when he figures that out. And the dude’s smart, it’s only a matter of time. Thing is though, it didn’t go down like you think. Yea, I’d been casing the joint, learning his regulars, firing them up over his little  _ no touching  _ policy, not that it was hard. That shit was a pile of dry kindling, I just threw the match.” He hesitates, not sure he really wants to share the rest with Sam. “His boss went after them, you know. Like, right out of the gate. He saw them follow Cas out, and he was right behind them. I thought, bunch of guys that worked up and rowdy, no way a little dude like Crowley was gonna be able to handle them all on his own. I figured I’d give him a minute or two and then pretend to step out for a smoke, play the hero, go from there.”

Dean pauses and sucks in a breath, surprised at how hard recounting this story to Sam is. Despite his own suspicion that he is, actually soulless, somehow Castiel affects him, in ways he's never experienced before. All the emotions swirling around the memory of this particular event are unfamiliar and terrifying in their own ways, and Dean’s pretty sure the main one is  _ guilt.  _ He  _ fucking  _ hates it, wants to claw his own face off whenever he feels it. Once again, how regular humans cope with this shit every day, Dean’s got no goddamn clue.

Thinking back to when he saw Crowley step back inside the club only a minute or so after leaving, Dean flinches. At the time, it had taken him longer than he cares to admit to realize that neither Castiel nor any of the regulars Dean had goaded into carrying out his twisted plan were with him, as well as the implications of what that meant. Dean’s stomach clenches painfully to remember it now. A wash of cold fear had spilled over him, freezing him in place as he realized that Crowley hadn’t intervened at all, had simply left Castiel behind, completely at the mercy of those barbarians.

Dean might be a monster, but those walking garbage cans out in the alleyway weren’t even  _ human. _

_ What had he done? _

His heart in his throat, Dean had wavered briefly between keeping his cool and losing it. Ultimately, he’d jumped from his seat so forcefully that he’d knocked over his chair, and still no one paid him any mind. Seeing that, he’d taken off, racing through the club and slamming into the emergency exit door still going full speed. He'd burst into the damp alleyway hoping against hope that he was wrong, that they'd all simply broken up and gone on their merry ways, but the scene that greeted him immediately blew all of that to shit. 

Dean doesn't think he'll ever get the image of Castiel being held down like that out of his mind.

While he recounts the entire story back to his brother, Sam sits in horrified silence. “They’re lucky  _ any  _ of them made it out of that alley alive that night,” Dean growls. “I  _ wanted  _ to rip them all to pieces, I did, but Cas…” He swallows and shakes his head, covering his eyes with his hand. “Maybe that’s why I haven’t pushed him to let me top. Seemed kinda fucked up after what I did, even for me. I mean, I did fuck with his condom stash though.” He huffs a laugh. “Replaced the whole pile with old shit that was all but guaranteed to break, but still. Points for effort, right?” He goes quiet then, waiting for Sam’s judgment.

“Holy shit,” Sam breathes after a minute or two. “Dean, holy shit.”

“Yea, dude, I know. I told you it was fucked up.” 

“No, not--I mean, yea, sure, but  _ Dean.  _ You  _ care  _ about him, about Cas.” Dean lifts his eyes from where they’ve been steadfastly trained on a particularly large knot in the wooden floor and reluctantly meets Sam’s surprised ones.

“I thought we already established this,” he says.

“Well, I mean, I  _ thought…  _ but Dean, you obviously can’t hear yourself. I’ve never heard you talk this way,  _ act  _ this way in my entire life. You didn’t get this angry when Lilith had me hooked on drugs and ditching you at every turn.” 

“Lilith was a whore,” Dean snipes. 

“And now she’s dead. But Dean, you’re  _ feeling.  _ Holy shit. And you’re taking out the guys who hurt him, right?” Dean looks up mournfully before shoving off of the couch and heading over to their liquor cabinet, pouring himself a hefty three fingers of whiskey and swallowing half in one giant, burning gulp. 

“One by one by one,” he replies, pausing to drain the rest of his glass before pouring another. 

“You  _ care, _ ” Sam repeats. “You’re doing it  _ for him _ , not because it gets you off.” Dean rolls his neck without turning around. He’d consider smacking his brother a new one just for  _ thinking  _ this shit if he wasn’t already completely exhausted. Problem is, for the second time today, Sam is right.

“Make it stop,” Dean says softly, fingering the rim of his glass. “I hate it.” 

“I don’t think I can,” Sam says, clearly incredulous, and Dean is one step away from giving him a sharp-edged reminder of who the fuck he really is. “If it helps, you’ve sold me on Cas,” he offers.

Dean turns to him and his spirits lift moderately. “Really? You’ll lay off?”

“ _ Only  _ if you keep me in the loop,” Sam warns. “Otherwise…” He does a truly pathetic humping motion from his spot in the chair, and Dean can’t help but laugh.

“Yea, alright, Ron Jeremy. In that case, I got just the job for you. You wanna add some color to these cheekbones?” 

***

Dean doesn’t meet Castiel at the club that night, and he doesn’t answer text messages when Castiel sends them. With Sam’s blessing and his help, Dean’s got a much better idea to put in motion, the stars all seeming to align for the final part of his plan. Just before midnight, after a call from Sam confirming that  _ Nick,  _ one of the two remaining rapists and the one Dean knows Castiel still has nightmares about, isn’t at the club, he’s ready. He lets his phone battery run down to zero, until his screen flickers and goes black.  _ Plausible deniability.  _ He parks the Impala behind a dive bar situated almost exactly halfway between the club and Castiel’s apartment building. He leaves the back end sticking out  _ just  _ far enough to catch the eye of anyone who would normally recognize her. Then he exits the car, albeit gingerly because the injuries he’s sporting are  _ extremely  _ real. 

The wet gravel crunches underneath the soles of his boots as Dean turns and checks himself out in Baby’s window. Credit to Sam and the well-suppressed rage that simmers beneath his deceptively calm exterior, Dean looks pretty damn fucked up. His right eye is purple and swollen, a wide cut slicing through the eyebrow above it and continuing down into his cheek. His nose is still dripping blood from both nostrils and his lip is split on the bottom, deep enough that Dean figures it’ll probably scar. 

_ It’ll be worth it,  _ he thinks. 

Uncapping the Tupperware in his hands, Dean winces as the movement jostles his bruised ribcage, breaths coming shallow as he tries to compensate for the pain. The memory of Sam’s steel-toed boot stomping down on his chest is, to say the least, an unpleasant one, despite its necessity. As he collects himself to dribble the partially-congealed blood over the side of the plastic container and onto the rocky ground, Dean grumbles in his head about exactly how much he’s going to murder Sam if any of his bones are actually broken. When the blood spatters looks realistic, at least to Dean’s own eye, he hobbles over to chuck the container in a nearby dumpster before returning to the supposed scene of the crime. Both of his shirts are already ripped and bloody, no need to pretend there. But just in case, Dean lays down on the ground, first on his back and then on his front, making sure to wiggle his body and really seal the impression that he’s been tossed around. Lastly, he digs fingers into the wounds on his face to open them up again, a fresh gush of blood spilling into his mouth, copper and iron coating his tongue thick and hot. 

And then he waits.

Face down, blood drooling freely from his nose and mouth and head ringing from its close encounter with his own coffee table, Dean has to fight the impulse to  _ actually  _ pass out, just in case. There’s always the remote possibility that Cas will deviate from his normal routine, that he’ll get stuck late at work, that he’ll make a new friend and be offered a ride home. Not  _ likely,  _ sure, because Castiel’s chronic affair with both routine and punctuality is unmatched, as are his shitty social skills, but Dean’s the kind of guy who accounts for extraneous circumstances, at least as far as it relates to protecting his own ass. 

Not to be proven wrong, like clockwork Dean’s half-lidded eyes spot Castiel’s favorite boots as they round the corner of the building next to where the Impala’s parked. Silently, he congratulates himself, cheering his good fortune that Cas takes the  _ same  _ route through the  _ same  _ alleys home, every single damn day. What to anyone else would probably look like a random and unremarkable series of choices regarding when to turn and how long to stay on that particular road for is actually a routine so well-ingrained, Cas  _ still  _ hasn’t considered that he might be his own worst enemy. 

_ Good thing Dean’s here to protect him now.  _

Of course, this--this  _ thing _ Dean’s about to do--it’s still a  _ test.  _ And as sure as Dean is about what Castiel is really capable of inside, the man could still fail. There  _ is  _ always the possibility that Dean has simply been seeing what he wants to see, and that Castiel is just another average dope with a pretty face, an amazing ass, and an empty, useless head.  _ God,  _ Dean hopes that’s not the case. For the first time in his life, he doesn’t want the game to end with his target strung up and bleeding and begging for his life. He wants Cas  _ beside  _ him, to be the one causing the bleeding.

But that’s all up to Cas now. 

Dean forces himself to relax against the pebbles digging into the skin of his face, slowing his breathing so that it’s hardly noticeable while keeping an eye on Castiel’s approach. He can tell immediately when Cas does the double-take, when his boots stop in their tracks and turn a mere forty-five degrees in his direction. 

“Dean?” Cas’ voice is quiet as if he’s not sure of what he’s seeing, but then his boots are pounding the pavement, gravel spraying as his voice rings out desperately, words bouncing across the alley walls. “ _ Dean! Dean!”  _ Dean lets his eyes slip the rest of the way closed before Castiel can get close enough to tell the difference. 

_ Showtime.  _

Staying limp and lifeless as Castiel manhandles him over onto his back and unleashes all form of profanities is difficult for Dean. Cas isn’t usually so rough around the edges and Dean digs it, finds it hard to keep from smiling at how affected Cas is. As a compromise to himself, he flutters his eyes a little as Castiel cradles his head, pushing hair and blood off of Dean’s face as he swears again. 

“ _ Dean,”  _ he repeats insistently, and his voice is so upset, so broken, Dean knows it’s time to wake the fuck up or risk Castiel calling 911. In fact, considering his apparent state, Dean’s kind of surprised he hasn’t tried to already. He lets his head loll back over Castiel’s arm and groans, low and miserable.

“Dean!” Castiel’s voice becomes tinged with excitement,  _ hope,  _ leaving Dean to fight down the twitch in his boxer briefs,  _ don’t give away the game.  _ He flutters his eyelids and then squeezes them shut as if he’s too pained to open them. Groaning again and moving as if he means to curl into Castiel, Dean makes a show of jerking back from the sharp pain in his ribs. He barely has to pretend when letting out a little cry and allowing his eyes to pop open, though. It all feels worth it when Castiel’s hand flies up to cradle his face.

“Cas?” Dean croaks, blinking dazedly up at concerned blue eyes. He tries to sit up, wincing and hardly needing to exaggerate the discomfort the movement creates. 

“Go slowly,” Castiel cautions, sliding his arm further down Dean’s back to support him until he’s upright and propped back against Castiel’s bent knee. Dean touches his nose and mouth gingerly, frowning at the sight of blood on his own hand as Castiel unzips his hoodie and pulls it off his own shoulders, pressing the sleeve firmly to the cut over Dean’s eye. “There’s gravel in all of these wounds, Dean, what happened?” 

Dean looks around in confusion, shaking his head slowly before pressing the heel of his hand over his uncovered eye as if he’s dizzy. “Jesus, fuck, Cas,” he says with a shuddering sigh. “I don’t wanna sound like a chick, but I thought I’d never see you again.” He recites the practiced sentence in a rush, going for breathless embarrassment, stress from the event but relief at seeing Castiel. It’s exhilarating to fuck with Castiel this way, acting his part and watching him respond in kind, but it’s  _ always  _ bizarre for Dean to fake his emotions. It’s not difficult, not anymore, now that he does it every day. This is just more… premeditated, he supposes. But behind the fun, and  _ especially  _ with Cas, there’s resentment and exhaustion too. Dean would be lying if he said he wasn’t glad they’d finally arrived at the last test. He’s more than ready to be himself around Cas, to have Castiel  _ know  _ him so well that he couldn’t fool him if he  _ tried _ . And he’s hardly trying now.

He realizes too late that Cas’ lips are moving and has to ask him to repeat, blaming his spacing out on the obvious head injury. It’s not a bad move.

“I said, will you let me call an ambulance? Or drive you to the hospital? Two of these are very deep.” Castiel’s face is knitted with concern, eyes laser-focused on the condition of Dean’s split skin as he prods at the edges of his eyebrow and lip with his fingers, wincing in sympathy.

Despite himself, Dean laughs a little. “We’ve gotta stop meeting like this,” he says softly, raising his eyes just as Castiel realizes the irony of his words and looks down at him, mouth quirked. 

“You did say that to me, didn’t you?” Dean’s smile widens before quickly fading as he doubles over into a cough, holding his chest. He swallows and waves off Castiel’s clearly increasing concern.

“I’m alright, Cas, really. I’ve had worse. No, seriously,” he adds when Castiel looks skeptical. Dean glances away and clears his throat. 

“I don’t believe a word of that, but will you at least tell me what happened? Who  _ did  _ this?”

“Yea, that’s the thing,” Dean tells him, hoping the reluctance in his tone comes through. “Pretty sure me going to the police means you get dragged into this too, and I know that ain’t what you want.” 

“Me? What do I...” Castiel shakes his head in confusion as Dean looks up at him mournfully, realizing after he does that he’s laying it on a little thick. He reels it back in by focusing on pushing to his feet. He uses his car to brace, stoically refusing Castiel’s help. When he’s finally upright, he hesitates before dropping the bomb. 

“Nick jumped me,” he says, clapping his hands against his thighs in resignation. “I was stopping to grab a beer before you got off work, figured I’d grab you after. Stepped out of the car, next thing I know, dude is in my face. He caught me completely off guard. Smashed me across the face with a forty. The rest is kind of… blurry.”

“ _ What? _ Nick, as in… from…” Castiel trails off, flinching a little as realization sets in, horror blooming in his eyes. “He didn’t--?”

“No,” Dean reassures him quickly. “I passed out as he was walking away. I think he was just looking for revenge.”

Castiel doesn’t react quite as Dean thought he would, though, snapping his mouth shut and setting his jaw as his face goes stony. “Come,” he says firmly, leading Dean around to the passenger’s side of the car and opening the door. “In,” he demands, and Dean raises his eyebrows, forgetting that one side is busted up. A fresh trickle of blood releases and makes its way down his cheek. 

“I can drive my own car, Cas,” he argues, swiping at his face with Castiel’s hoodie that’s still in his hands. “I’m busted up, I ain’t dead.”

But Castiel just shakes his head, mind made up. “If you don’t get in, I will  _ put  _ you in. And then I will drag you home, wash you clean, and care for your injuries the same way you’ve been caring for me since the day we met, whether you like it or not. No arguments,” he snaps, when Dean opens his mouth. Cowed, Dean puts up a hand in surrender as he fishes in his pocket for the keys before handing them over. Castiel fusses over his positioning in the seat and with his seatbelt, drawing back when he’s satisfied to close the door. But he hesitates then, turning back towards Dean with a fierceness,  _ a darkness  _ behind his eyes, the  _ first  _ real sign of it that Dean’s actually seen, and his heart almost fucking stops. 

“And then we are going to discuss what to do about  _ Nick,”  _ Castiel rumbles before slamming the door.

_ Fucking Yahtzee. _

***


	4. Part 2: Sirius

_Dean_

They’re in Castiel’s shower, sudsed up from head to toe, Castiel massaging shampoo into Dean’s hair with both hands while kissing the unblemished corner of his mouth gently. “You were right,” Dean says, squeezing his hips. “I do feel better.”

Castiel’s eyes search his own, and Dean holds his gaze. There’s nothing about the intimacy of this moment or whatever spark is between them that’s a lie, as weak and pathetic as that may seem for a man like Dean. Cas is perfect, and Dean’s going to bend and twist and shape him until he knows it too. 

“I thought you were angry at me,” Castiel admits. “Before I went on stage for the second time, it had been hours since you texted me. And then when I came back to the locker room, my phone had malfunctioned. I had to factory reset it, although perhaps that was a good thing in the end. I’m not sure I would have been able to resist calling 911 right away, seeing you lying there like that.” 

Dean knows the feeling, and he guesses it shows. “My phone died. Why would I have been mad at you?” Castiel just shrugs and doesn’t answer, finishing up with his hair and moving to scrub the rest of the suds off of Dean’s shoulders and chest. His hands drift gently over the bruises blossoming across his rib cage, careful not to press and cause additional pain. He kneels down at Dean’s feet and finishes washing, and  _ fuck Dean’s life,  _ he can’t help it, seeing Cas down on his knees like that sends a rush of blood to his cock that can’t be stopped. 

But thankfully, Castiel just seems amused when Dean’s dick plumps up uninvited, smiling as he stands back up without so much as touching anywhere near it. He rinses his own body off and then stops the water, stepping out to grab towels and tending to Dean before taking care of himself. “Let’s get these wounds patched up and then we’ll take care of your other…  _ needs,” _ he suggests and Dean swallows hard. “Since you seem to think you’re up to it.”

Scratching at the back of his neck, Dean clears his throat. “Uh, yea, listen, as much as you turn me on, and you really fucking do, Cas, I just don’t think I’m in any shape to get pounded tonight.” Castiel stops and pivots where he’s strutting naked out into the hallway, towel slung carelessly over his shoulder. He grins. 

“Good thing it’s about time we tried to switch, then,” he says with pointed, raised eyebrows, causing Dean to need a  _ long _ moment to hide the effect those words have on him. Wishes must be fuckin’ horses today, or something. 

Thirty minutes, a bunch of iodine, superglue, and a handful of butterfly closures later, Dean’s face is relatively blood-free and lacking any freely-bleeding wounds. There’s a wide abrasion on his chest and while it isn’t exactly  _ open,  _ just raw, Castiel spreads triple antibiotic cream on there too, just for good measure. Apparently finished, he inspects Dean from head to toe, which isn’t hard since he’s still naked from their shower. Only when he’s satisfied with what he sees does he nod and allow Dean to put his own first aid kit back together. 

By the time that’s all done, even Dean has to admit that in  _ any  _ other circumstance, he’d be choosing sleep over sex, the way he’s feeling. But this is  _ Cas,  _ offering himself up for the first time, and there ain’t a snowball’s chance in Hell Dean’s passing that up. This is what he was  _ counting  _ on, Cas getting caught up in his emotions and  _ sliding,  _ taking that first uncontrolled step down a  _ very  _ steep slippery slope. Dean saw it in the alley, just for a minute, in the way Castiel’s eyes went unfocused, his posture relaxed but determined, zero insecurity in his pronouncement that they  _ can  _ and  _ will  _ do  _ something  _ about Nick.

And Dean needs to do everything he can to ensure that Cas doesn’t back down from that empowerment he’s feeling. So yes, when Cas slides into his lap, straddles his hips and starts grinding like Dean’s a paying customer, he doesn’t protest. And it’s  _ definitely  _ because of the  _ plan  _ and not some bizarre  _ need  _ shoving in the back of his mind to get Cas’ skin against his own that has Dean responding so eagerly. 

Anyway, it’s not as if getting to finally fuck Cas is some kind of  _ hardship.  _

Castiel’s eyes are dark again as he hovers over Dean, though it’s a different, softer kind of dark that’s not in any way unfamiliar on him. Dean can see plainly how hard he’s thinking as he works to both admire and carefully scrutinize Dean’s body all at the same time. He can see the gears turning as Castiel plans out where to put his hands, how to lean so as not to cause pain, which parts of Dean he can still freely touch and kiss. For his part, Dean just lies there, watching Cas puzzle it all out, hiding from his own mind behind the need to maintain his fake persona so that he doesn’t have to admit how much he  _ likes  _ this softness. 

Cas’ tongue darts out to wet his lips as he leans down, and Dean finds himself moving to meet him. Threading fingers into the hair at the back of Cas’ head as Dean’s mouth opens for him, their kisses are immediately  _ hot  _ and  _ just  _ the wrong side of too rough on Dean’s freshly glued cut. But he doesn’t move to stop, instead rolling his hips up to force contact where Cas is holding himself back. He gets a moan and a tongue sweeping through his mouth for the effort. Dean squeezes both cheeks of Cas’ ass and bites back a groan as Castiel really starts to lose it, shoving arms below his head to pull them in tight together, his kisses already sloppy, open-mouthed and wet. 

“Sorry,” Castiel gasps, pulling back suddenly and visibly struggling to control his breathing. He’s blinking back tears, shifting as Dean winces when he uses the wrong part of his chest for leverage to sit up a little, but Dean only shushes him and drags him back down. He uses the momentum to roll them both so that they land on their sides, facing each other. Cas is still breathing hard and his eyes are shining, so Dean draws him close, grabbing a muscled thigh to drape it over his own before wrapping arms around Cas’ body and kissing all over his face. They’re pressed together now from head to toe, and as Castiel starts to shake, Dean is  _ not  _ thinking about how nice it is just holding him tight. And his head is  _ definitely  _ not spinning from the unwanted realization that he doesn’t actually  _ need  _ sex tonight, just Cas. 

_ Shit.  _

Dean continues going through the motions of comforting Cas when he finally lets go and breaks down, but he’s unsettled as hell on the inside. Tears leak freely from the corners of Cas’ eyes as he confesses into Dean’s shoulder how hard it was to see him hurt, how strangely desperate he feels to connect with him now. Dean nods, agrees out loud, but inside his head, he’s one hundred percent focused on himself, because it’s fucking  _ alarming  _ that he’s thinking  _ the same things.  _ It’s one thing for him to have feelings for Cas, it’s quite another for Cas to  _ humanize  _ him. 

Dean realizes with some dawning horror that this may not be the end of the changes in himself if he keeps on with Cas. Problem being, Dean  _ likes  _ who he is, doesn’t  _ want  _ to be some hot piece of ass’ lap dog.  _ Fuck that.  _ What if being with Cas is turning him soft? What if in bringing Cas in, trying to make him a part of the  _ team,  _ trying to do what he does  _ with  _ Cas, winds up  _ neutering him?  _ Dean starts to outright panic, though years of practice allow him to maintain the cool facade he’s perfected to a T when Cas pulls back to look at him.

But then Cas starts to say it, the words Dean’s  _ waited  _ to hear, passing the last test with flying fucking colors and Dean suddenly realizes that he can’t go there. He  _ can’t  _ risk letting Castiel in and winding up ruining his entire life,  _ changing  _ everything about who he is.  _ He can’t. _

“I think we need to do something about Nick,” a still-sniffling Castiel says with conviction, and Dean’s heart stops in his chest. Emotions ping-pong in all directions through his head, clouding his judgment and his usual cool control. Purely on reflex, he shoves away from Castiel and rolls out of the bed, falling to the floor and quickly scrabbling back up and into his clothes. Or possibly Cas’ clothes, it’s not as if he’s really paying attention to what he’s grabbing. “Dean!” Castiel calls after him as he strides away down the hall. “What--what’s wrong?” 

“I’ve gotta go,” he mutters, grabbing his keys and phone and beelining for the front door of the apartment. Unsurprisingly, Castiel follows.

“Dean, please,” he says, eyes wide and confused and  _ so  _ hurt,  _ way  _ worse than anything Dean’s seen on his face before. Considering everything Cas has been through, that’s saying something. “Dean, don’t go, please.” Cas slides his still-naked body between Dean and the door and puts gentle hands on his chest. “You’re upset, I can see that, you don’t want to talk. I’ll take the couch Dean, we don’t have to--Dean,  _ please,  _ I’ll do whatever you want, just don’t go.” 

Castiel says those last words with so much pure sincerity and hope that Dean falters. He finds himself  _ wanting  _ to accept the offer, wanting nothing more than to turn right the fuck around and take Castiel to bed, to fuck him, to let himself be held and taken care of in the way Castiel clearly wants to.

And it’s for that very reason that Dean gathers his wits, pushes Castiel aside, and slips out the door. He has to ignore Cas’ sad voice calling his name all the way out to the Impala. 

Dean doesn’t look back.

***

For the next three days, Dean is a fucking bear. He’s miserable to be around, snapping at Sam, pissing off Ruby with his attitude, holing up in his room and shunning both people and daylight. He bunkers down amongst empty beer and whiskey bottles, pizza boxes, and piles of worn comfy clothes, steadfastly ignoring his buzzing phone until he can’t stand it anymore, and then turning it off. He spends his days lounging on his increasingly dirty bed, searching for the bottom of said bottles and listening to music or watching a mix of old westerns and porn on his TV. He tries to jerk off a few times but finds himself unable to concentrate on the naked bodies filling up his screen; his mind instead flitting against his will to Cas’ thick thighs squeezed around his own, his cock hard against Dean’s stomach and  _ fuck his entire life. _

The third time that happens, Dean gets so frustrated he grabs the half-drunk beer off of his nightstand and wings it at the door where it shatters into a million pieces. He’s horny and irritated and so pent-up he feels like he could burst. So when Sam opens the door only moments later without so much as knocking, he knows he’s in  _ really  _ bad shape. It must be worse than he’s capable of recognizing, because Sam wouldn’t dare enter his space without knocking, never mind when he’s on the warpath the way he’s been. And yet, here Sam is, eyes darting from the mess on the floor to Dean’s now-limp dick, his nose scrunched up like something smells  _ (and let’s face it, his room probably does)  _ and a hand on his hip like he’s Katherine fucking Heigl at the Oscars. 

“You need to get out,” he says sternly, expression brooking no argument. Dean scowls and stuffs his junk back into his underwear. “No, scratch that,” Sam says. “You need to _ shower,  _ and  _ then  _ get out.” 

“Fuck off, Sammy,” Dean mutters, flopping over to bury his face into his pillow. He’d never hurt Sam, but the rage in his veins simmers, barely contained and aching to burst free. Despite his reluctance to admit it, he knows Sam is right. Much longer and even Sam and Ruby might become targets. Dean’s never done well without an outlet.

“You know that I’m right, Dean,” Sam pushes, and that only pisses Dean off more, so he stays silent. Sam pauses a beat and then continues. “You’ve got an hour to be walking out the door, and then I’m stepping in. I’ll bring you take-out if I have to.” 

“Your picks suck,” Dean mumbles into his memory foam. “Lemme alone.” 

“Those are your choices, Dean. Go do your thing the way you want to do it, or I’ll lock you in the back room with the first person I can pick up. I’m thinking, brown hair, blue eyes, muscles in all the right places? I don’t know what happened between you and Cas, but maybe you just need to take this out on someone who reminds you of him.” 

“Fuck  _ off,  _ Sam,” is Dean’s only reply, and after a moment, Sam sighs and drags the door shut behind him as he leaves.

“One hour,” he warns, and Dean groans loudly into his bedding. Sam doesn’t know  _ shit  _ about what he  _ needs _ .

Well, at least where it concerns Cas. The rest is pretty dead on the mark, no pun intended.

By the time Dean hauls himself up and into the shower in the ensuite to his room, he’s already got a target in mind and is formulating a plan. When Sam knocks and opens the door again a half-hour later, Dean’s dressed and coiffed, sitting on the edge of the bed with his laptop, finishing up some research. He’s even stripped his bed linen.

“Good,” is all Sam says, not even bothering to smirk or be smug or  _ anything _ , and Dean finds that even more infuriating than if he had.  _ Fuck,  _ he really needs to release some tension. 

It takes Dean two hours to track his target down, two more to stake out his house and make a plan of entry and removal. But only fifteen minutes after exiting his car with a bag of supplies,  _ Gordon Walker,  _ the last man who held Castiel down while he was violated by two men at the same time, is dead. Dean had meant to drag it out, meant to slice and dice and really prolong Gordon’s suffering, but one look at that asshole’s face and Dean had just snapped. In that instant, he’d been transported straight back to that alley, Gordon’s eyes the first he’d made contact with after stumbling out the door.

Gordon recognized him too, if the fear in his face was any indication, not that he had the time or windpipe availability to mention it. 

“This is for  _ Castiel,”  _ Dean hissed, as he squeezed the life from him, leather-gloved fingers wrapping greedily around his neck and  _ choke, choke, choking  _ until the light went out in Gordon’s bloodshot eyes. So while the main event might not have lasted  _ quite  _ as long as Dean would have liked, there was no way to cover this one as a suicide, and therefore, his work had only begun. 

In the end, he leaves Gordon in his own living room, strung up in the middle of a tangle of ropes woven to appear like a spider’s web. 

_ GUILTY.  _ That’s what the note written in block letters on notebook paper ripped from a found binder reads. Dean stuck it to the middle of Gordon’s chest with a smear of his own blood. Blood that came from where Dean cut his dick off post-mortem, tucking it inside a wooden box he’d brought along for that express purpose. 

The satisfaction Dean feels as he packs up his supplies and slinks out the back door of the house to return to his car is temporarily dampened, though, when the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Skulking close to the bushes at the side of Gordon’s house, he whips his head this way and that, searching desperately in the deep shadows for anything out of the ordinary. The neighborhood is perfectly quiet, enough so that he’d unquestionably hear a footfall or a snapping twig, or a rustling bush concealing anyone ballsy enough to spy on  _ him.  _ But after a minute of waiting and looking around, no noise reaches his ears, save for the rush of his own breath. Uneasy but willing to blame his paranoia on the necessary caution he has to take after leaving  _ any  _ kill scene, Dean physically rolls his shoulders to shrug the feeling off and move on. By the time he reaches the Impala, the sensation is gone anyway, and it’s easy to believe that it was all in his head to begin with.

As he drives home, Dean rolls the windows down and blasts Led Zeppelin’s  _ Kashmir,  _ drumming his fingers on the side of the car as if he hasn’t got a care in the world. He swings by the Post Office and drops the little package in the mail, addressed to Gordon Walker’s mother in Michigan. He smiles in satisfaction as he listens to it  _ thump  _ against the bottom of the metal bin before pulling away. 

Because Sam really was right, and because he’s an awesome older brother, Dean stops to replace the beer he’s swilled over the past few days at one of those open-all-night places on his way back to the loft. He’s edgy, because the store is only less than a block from Cas’ place, not that he’s ever known Cas to go on beer runs at o’dark thirty, but still. He needs to avoid the man, get him out of his system, forget that he ever existed.

Which is why it’s less than convenient when Dean walks out of the store and spots said man standing outside his apartment building. He’s too far away to really pick out details, but Dean’s eyes still snap to Cas like they’re magnets and Cas is metal. He’d recognize the cut of his chest, the curve of his ass and those thick thighs  _ anywhere.  _ He’s about to tear his gaze away,  _ really, he’s just going to get in the car and go,  _ when he realizes Cas isn’t alone. There’s another man with him, tall and wearing a hoodie so Dean can’t make him out, and he’s standing  _ way  _ too close to Cas to just be friendly. 

All of the anger and frustration Dean had just expended killing Gordon boils up anew inside his body and makes him see nothing but red. Furious and knowing he has  _ no  _ right to be, he stuffs himself inside the Impala and tosses the beer carelessly on the seat next to him. Dean’s hands shake with rage as they wrap around the steering wheel, fighting every urge and instinct to bolt from the car and across the street and bash that motherfucker’s head into pudding on the sidewalk. And then he’d fuck Cas next to it, make him  _ look,  _ make him  _ see  _ what happens to people who touch his things. 

But after sitting and breathing heavily for a moment, the red haze clouding his vision starts to fade  _ just  _ enough for Dean to claw his way back and regain his grip on sanity. Once he’s sure he won’t try to mow Cas and his new friend over with it, he turns the car on and throws it into reverse. By the time he’s driving past Cas’ place, the two men are gone, and Dean finds that thought  _ so  _ much worse. 


	5. Part 3: Magnetic Reversal

_Dean_

Two weeks go by with Dean barely hanging onto the edge of sanity. He doesn’t kill again, because it’s not  _ that  _ kind of frustration, and at the very least, Gordon’s death seems to have satisfied that specific urge for the time being. Though in reality, it’s not actually  _ satisfaction  _ he feels, more like hitting  _ snooze  _ on an alarm clock than anything else. Eventually, the urge will catch up with him again, it always does. 

Dean  _ should  _ be building up a plan, in the interim. He  _ should  _ be preparing to take out Nick because the guy has really got to go, but every time he drags his thoughts onto that topic, his brain just seems to shut down. To say it’s out of character for Dean to be unable to get amped over a potential kill is an understatement, but here he fucking is. All the more reason that he can’t go running back to Cas; if being around Cas messes him up this badly, it’s just never gonna fucking work. No, he just needs to wallow for a little while, and then get back to it, forget Castiel ever even existed.

Sam leaves him alone, for the most part, though he’s  _ nicer  _ to Dean than usual, and Dean fucking hates that more than anything else. Sam also starts coming and going at stranger hours than usual, waving Dean off when he questions it with a vague explanation of “branching out from the club.” Assuming he means in regards to his drug territory, Dean doesn’t really care enough to prod at that further. Sam’s not a baby and he can do what he wants. 

The city’s police force, as expected, are still collectively dumber than a box of hair and have no leads on Gordon’s killer. On the plus side, though, Dean’s at least pleased to see that he makes National news the night Mrs. Walker gets her little care package. The coverage on that debacle is, at the very least, amusing and distracting. 

Because despite his best efforts, he  _ can’t  _ seem to shake Cas. For the first week following Gordon’s murder, Cas had continued to refuse to stop calling and texting. When those methods didn’t work, he moved on to leaving voicemail messages too, an endless string of them on top of the texts, all of which Dean deletes without ever reading or listening to. It becomes a routine of sorts, ignoring Cas. But in his own mind, it’s not so easy. His brain won’t stop bouncing back to the guy every chance it gets. Replaying their time together inter-spliced with Dean’s unrealized fantasies, wondering what Cas is doing ( _ who he’s fucking _ ), if he’s thinking about Dean, too. Though that one doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out, since he’s still calling. 

But then abruptly, the calls stop. And the week of silence that follows is the worst of Dean’s life because now he can’t pretend that there’s any going back. 

_ Cas has moved on. _

So Dean tries to move on, too. He finds a new bar in a new neighborhood, not quite ready to hit up another strip club yet, but more than willing to drown his sorrows in whiskey. He slowly gets his life and his space in the apartment back in order and stops snapping at Sam and Ruby (any more than usual). He’s miserable, but he’s coping because he  _ has  _ to. If he wants to keep their lives the way they are, if he wants to  _ stay who he is,  _ this is the only option. He  _ can’t  _ go back to Castiel, can’t let him turn him soft and  _ normal.  _

Strangely, the sensation of someone watching him returns a few times after that weird moment outside Gordon’s little house. It occurs at odd times, too, like when Dean’s leaving the burger joint after picking up dinner, or while he’s sitting at his new bar late at night. There’s never anyone there when he looks around, and Dean can’t even imagine what kind of person would be  _ crazy  _ enough to follow  _ him.  _ If they really were outside Gordon’s house, then they must already know who and what Dean is. 

Ultimately, he decides that his low-key stalker is Sam. His little brother never was any good at letting Dean mope in peace, always wanting to swoop in and  _ fix  _ things. Dean figures Sam knows he’s pushing it, that Dean just wants to work things out on his own, and that he already got a win when he pried Dean out of his room and sent him off to vent his anger on Gordon. Sam probably isn’t willing to risk the argument ( _ and beat down) _ he knows will come if he keeps pressing his luck. And besides, no one on this  _ planet  _ except Sam possesses Dean’s unparalleled skill to hang in the shadows and  _ watch  _ without being seen. Hell,  _ Sam  _ only has it because Dean taught him everything he knows. 

So Dean leaves it be, doesn’t bring it up to his brother. If it makes Sam feel better to waste his time following Dean around town, then whatever. Let him have it. Dean’s got enough to worry about. 

Time goes by like that, several weeks passing with Dean moping endlessly and not quite able to get up the cajones to carry out his original plan for Nick. Sam continues skulking around nearly everywhere Dean goes just out of sight. It’s fine, everything is fine, and Dean is definitely  _ not  _ still pining after Cas and wishing things were different.

He’s  _ not.  _

This is just his life now. And Dean’s fine with that.

Until late one night, almost a month after Gordon’s murder and just over that since he left Cas naked and pleading for him to stay, Dean gets a text on his phone from Sam. Earlier, Sam had left the loft muttering something about “business,” the way he has been lately, except this time he made it a point to let Dean know that he might need him for backup later. That wasn’t unusual, in fact, it was pretty standard to the way things were between them before Cas, and Dean thought that was kind of nice. 

It feels good to think that he and Sam are finally shifting back into some sense of normalcy. 

Sam’s message is short and to the point; he’s got a  _ project  _ and wants Dean to meet him at a particular address. The end of the text contains a pointed instruction for Dean to bring his gear.

The typeset words on the screen send a thrill down Dean’s spine, that message is in no way ambiguous; Sam needs his help for  _ one  _ thing and one thing only. He’s got someone who needs taken care of, and he’s going to let Dean do it. 

Dean has the best brother. 

He packs up and follows the direction on his GPS to the address on his phone, and it turns out to be an abandoned warehouse in the northwest corner of the city. It’s a good spot for something like this, a section even more dilapidated and crime-ridden than the one he and Cas live in. No one, especially not the cops, are going to happen by here accidentally, that’s for sure. Concerned about his Baby, Dean takes her around to the back of the warehouse and parks her behind a set of dumpsters. He’s careful to ensure that no one sees him do it because you can never be too careful. Not about his cover, no one in this neighborhood is gonna rat someone out, even for murdering in cold blood in the middle of the street. Fuck no, but they  _ will  _ steal every inch of chrome off of his car, the wheels,  _ and  _ the working guts without so much as blinking. 

Satisfied that the Impala is relatively safe, Dean grabs his canvas duffle from the trunk and slings it over his shoulder. He checks the gun tucked into the back of his pants as well, because it’s  _ definitely  _ that kind of neighborhood, before making his way to the warehouse’s side door, as Sam instructed. No one’s around as he slips inside, the door creaking ominously behind him as it opens and shuts.

The interior of the warehouse is pitch black, so dark that even when Dean’s eyes adjust, all he can make out are deep shadows. He hears a scuffling noise towards what he thinks is the center of the space, and it echoes, indicating a room of decent size. That noise plus the lack of light or any sign of Sam makes the hair on Dean’s arms raise in warning. Being the thing that goes bump in the night, Dean rarely encounters situations that put him on edge in this way, but something about this situation just feels  _ off.  _ Why would Sam have the lights off? Why wouldn’t he greet Dean? 

Following his instincts to be stealthy for the time being, Dean shrinks back against the wall and suppresses his urge to call out Sam’s name. Opening his phone is off the table too, since it would certainly draw attention to his presence, if the door opening didn’t already take care of that. At a clear disadvantage and with no way to gain the upper hand, Dean quickly decides to bail out, get back to the car and call Sam to see what’s up. Best case scenario, his instincts are hypersensitive right now, and Sam stepped out for supplies. Worst case, this is a fucking trap and he’s walking right into it. 

Dean feels his way back along the wall for the door, his hand skating across the crumbling cement until it discovers a box.  _ Switches,  _ he determines, fingers feeling their way along the box’s length.  _ Probably light switches.  _ He hesitates, torn between sticking to his original plan and bailing, and the worry that Sam is in danger somewhere. In the end, with his gun at the ready, Dean goes all in and flips the entire row up, bracing for whatever he might find when the lights come on. 

The interior of the warehouse flickers into visibility, dim yellow lighting flooding the entirety of what Dean correctly deduced is one giant room. There’s a bunch of factory machinery lining one side, rusted and defunct for god knows how long, the majority of the rest of the space empty save for a few mattresses and piles of trash. Not surprising for this part of town, just signs that the place has been used recently as a crash pad for the homeless and indigent, probably a great spot for junkies to shoot up. But the middle of the room is clear, the floor broom-swept and empty, save for a big, rusted iron pole running from floor to high ceiling… and the man sitting gagged in a chair, tied to it. 

Dean recognizes him immediately. It’s that fucker  _ Nick,  _ Lucifer, whatever, the one he’d blamed Sam’s handiwork with his face on and who had raped Cas. The very same guy Dean’s been stewing over, working up to even  _ considering  _ taking out for weeks now, and as of yet, been completely unable to even think about confronting. A mix of emotions rises inside of him at the sight of that scumbag tied up and vulnerable, desire sweeping through his body like the rush of fall wind through the leaves on a tree, despite his misgivings. But he pushes it down, forces his upstairs brain to stay online because Nick isn’t alone. Perched on a chair several feet away, his hands clasped primly in his lap and one leg crossed casually over the other, is Cas. He doesn’t move a muscle when he’s revealed, instead, he continues calmly surveying Dean with those piercing blue eyes of his, the ghost of a smirk gracing his mouth.

Dean swallows heavily, eyes darting around as he struggles to process what the fuck is going on here, and entirely distracted by Castiel’s presence at all. “Cas,” he finally manages, throat dry and gun still hanging in a limp hand at his side. He decides to assume what appears to be obvious, which is that Cas has somehow unraveled some of his lies, and he’s just crazy enough to try and use Nick to set the record straight. 

Clearly, Dean should leave. He and Cas aren’t together, they  _ can’t  _ be, and there’s no fucking way Cas has even half the understanding of what a display like this _ means  _ to him. He should back the fuck up out the door and  _ go. _

Instead, Dean licks his lips and says, “I… I can explain?” 

_ What the fuck is wrong with him?  _ Dean blames his ineptitude with both words and action on Castiel’s unexpected presence, the man just throws him off balance in all the worst  _ (best)  _ ways, and apparently, a little time apart hasn’t changed that. When Castiel just continues staring, the smile on his face widening minutely, Dean keeps talking, stumbling awkwardly over himself some more. “Where’s Sam?” He tries. “He said he’d be…” He trails off and scratches at the back of his neck with the hand holding his gun, and Castiel finally takes pity on him.

Uncrossing his legs and standing, brushing imaginary dirt from his thighs, Castiel stalks towards him with a look that even  _ Dean  _ would struggle to describe as anything other than outright predatory. 

“Sam isn’t here,” Cas says lowly, and  _ fuck,  _ Dean missed that voice. Something about Cas is  _ different,  _ other than the obvious of having apparently kidnapped and tied up a man against his will. He’s… Dean can’t quite put his finger on it, but whatever it is, it’s keeping him rooted to the spot as Castiel advances towards him. The air between them is electric, there’s no denying that, and Castiel doesn’t hesitate getting up in his space, chests brushing and warm breath skating over Dean’s jaw, up to his ear. “Sam agrees that this is between you and me.” 

“Sam…he, what? He-- _ What  _ is between you and me, Cas…?” Dean’s disjointed protests are mild and confused, his head cloudy from Castiel’s proximity, and he’s both relieved and disappointed when the other man steps back and he can breathe.

Castiel grins. “For someone who fancies himself the mastermind of our story, you’re surprisingly slow on the uptake, Dean.” 

Dean just blinks, shaking his head at Castiel’s raised eyebrows and glancing over at Nick, who’s looking more and more panicked by the moment, though the gag is well preventing him from expressing it. Dean licks his lips before replying. “How much do you know?” 

“More than you.” Castiel shoots back lightly, stepping forward again to take Dean’s bag off of his shoulder before turning his back and making his way over to the side of the room. As his eyes follow Castiel’s movement, Dean notices there’s a rolling cart, one he recognizes from the workroom in the back of his own apartment. 

“Did Sam bring that?” He asks, incredulous. “Seriously? Cas, I know you think you’re being cute and coy, but I’m gonna need you to spell this out for me, because I’m not sure that I’m picking up whatever it is you think you’re putting down.” 

“Cute.” Castiel snorts, pulling various instruments from Dean’s bag and aligning them next to each other on the top of the cart. “Alright,” he agrees.

“Alright?” Dean presses. He’s careful to keep the gun ready in his hand and the door at his back, wary of any further surprises. It’s not as if he  _ wants  _ to shoot Cas, but push comes to shove, no one corners Dean Winchester.

Castiel ignores his defensive posturing and continues arranging the supplies. “You know, Sam has made a bit of a name for himself at my club,” he says, almost conversationally. If circumstances had been different, if they’d, say, had this conversation on Castiel’s couch while queueing up a movie, Dean might not have picked up on the subtle, sharp inflection in his voice. He doesn’t miss it now, though, and he’s got no idea how to react. Fortunately, Castiel continues talking without waiting for Dean to acknowledge what he’s said. “It wasn’t hard for me to track him down. Getting Sam to talk, though, that wasn’t nearly as simple. He’s very loyal to you, Dean.”

Cold fear hits Dean like a bucket of water to the face, and he raises his gun, cocking it in Cas’ direction. “Did you hurt Sam? What did you do to him?” Dean demands angrily.

But Castiel just raises his head and barks out a laugh when he sees Dean and his readied weapon. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he replies, returning to whatever he’s doing on that fucking cart. “Sam and I are friends.” That bizarre statement doesn’t make Dean feel any better, but he lowers his gun for the time being. As he does, Castiel drags the cart over so that it’s closer to Nick, before giving his attention back fully to Dean.

“I know what you are,” he says calmly, clearly, and without any hint of fear. His gaze is unflinching and trained on Dean’s own, holding him trapped. “I guessed parts, and when Sam and I first talked, he filled in some of the blanks. Whatever I might not have believed became crystal clear when we followed you to Gordon’s house. I kept watching you after that, of course, but seeing your handiwork in person...” He shrugs and wanders forward again but stops a foot or so away from Dean this time. “My own eyes were impossible to deny. It took me some time to cope, to come to terms with the things you did… to me.” Castiel reaches out and lets soft fingers dance across Dean’s chest. “But Sam…” His eyes dart from the buttons on Dean’s shirt up to his face. “He had quite a few things to say. Speaking to him helped.” He shrugs again. “And I understand now. Not just about  _ you,  _ and who you are, but about myself too. I forgive you, Dean, and I know what I want, what I need to do to show you that I’m serious. I think you owe me at least the opportunity to try.” 

Castiel produces a knife from his pants, and Dean recognizes it as one of his own, a tool from the bag Cas was just unpacking. He must have pocketed it while Dean’s gears were turning. “Take it,” Castiel encourages, and their skin brushes together when Dean obeys. As the knife changes hands, Castiel lets his linger, trailing fingers up from Dean’s hand to his arm to his shoulder as he circles behind him, a chill shuddering down Dean’s spine. “I know what you want from him,” Castiel whispers in his ear, hands smoothing down Dean’s rib cage as his chest presses firmly to Dean’s back. “I want it, too.” Dean’s breath quickens, feeling Castiel flush against him from shoulder to thigh, and his eyes flutter shut against his will when he realizes that  _ Cas is fucking hard.  _

Swaying a little, Dean rocks back into Castiel whose grip tightens on his hips. “ _ After,”  _ Cas murmurs, nudging Dean forward a little with his own pelvis. “I’ve got you, I’ll protect you. You’re not damaged, Dean. You’re  _ free  _ with me.” 

And that’s the last straw for Dean. Self-control flies out the window at Castiel’s words as they trigger some kind of release valve Dean didn’t even know he _had, _never mind that it was so fucking pressurized. His vision whites out and he goes on autopilot, _doing, feeling, sensing. _Nick’s eyes go wide as Dean steps forward, as if can _sense _that Dean is preparing to slice and dice until the restrained body in front of him is nothing more than a pile of flesh, blood, and bone, and _Nick _is gone. He looks terrified, struggling against his bonds as a wet stain appears on the front of his pants, and if _that _isn’t completely satisfying in its own right, Dean doesn’t know what is. 

Trailing the sharp edge of the blade just beneath Nick’s jaw, Dean starts off by applying enough pressure to draw blood at the very same area of his throat where Nick had cut Cas all those weeks ago. “Shame we can’t recreate that whole perverted scene,” he muses out loud. “But I’m one twisted motherfucker, and even I have my limits. What about you, Cas?” 

While the gag muffles his moans, Nick’s heaving chest is doing a beautiful job of revealing his distress. Tearing his eyes away, Dean shoots a glance over his shoulder at Castiel. He hesitates for a moment before flipping the knife in his palm and holding the handle out in Cas’ direction. Raising his eyebrows, he watches as Castiel’s return gaze darts between Nick and the blade and back again. To anyone else, Castiel would probably appear reluctant, unsure, maybe even scared. But Dean’s all too familiar with the longing, the hunger plumbing the depths of his wide blue eyes. He sees it more often than not hiding behind his own reflection in the mirror, the mask he wears every day to conceal his true nature from the rest of the world. 

“Cas,” he says softly. “You  _ just  _ told me that I’m safe with you, that you’ll protect me. You don’t think that goes both ways?” Castiel’s eyes dart up to meet his own and Dean smiles. “C’mon, sunshine. This is your party.” Slowly, Castiel moves forward and slides the knife from Dean’s hand, Dean catching his fingers at the last second and lifting them up to his own mouth. He kisses Cas’ knuckles, the knife tucked between their fingers, before releasing him and stepping behind the pole Nick’s tied to. He ignores the fact that Cas is still just standing there and squats down, wrapping his hands around Nick’s throat from behind and applying pressure until he gurgles. As Nick chokes, Dean looks up and finds Castiel staring down at them intently. Cas’ tongue darts out to wet his lips and then, just like that, he snaps. Dean can see clearly the moment his  _ want  _ solidifies, the second the light switch flips, and then Dean’s releasing Nick’s throat so that Cas can have the satisfaction of hearing his stifled screams as the blade of Cas’ knife sinks into his torso. 

And once Castiel gets started, there’s no reigning him back in. He’s a force of nature, a fucking  _ natural _ , relentless and merciless and Dean’s never seen anything like him in action. They take Nick apart together piece by piece and Dean’s never quite sure where he should look; at Nick, or at  _ Cas.  _ As the life drains slowly from Nick’s body, Dean’s never felt more alive. He sinks into his normal, somewhat dissociated headspace that he always ends up in while he kills, but he never stops being aware of Cas at his edges. 

When Nick is well and truly gone, Castiel drops his knife to the floor with a clatter and stumbles away with a gasp. His reaction drags Dean back to himself too, flushed and still breathing hard. As he blinks at the pile of flesh in front of him, taking in their joint grisly handiwork, Dean finds that he feels nothing but  _ relieved.  _ Cas didn’t make him soft; Cas gave him everything Dean never knew he was missing.

After continuing to survey the damage for a long moment of pure satisfaction, Dean turns around to face Cas, work boots sloshing in the significant blood that’s puddled on the floor beneath his feet. Abruptly, he finds the bone-deep need to  _ kill  _ replaced with a very different, but adjacent desire. 

Castiel’s eyes are on  _ fire,  _ focused fiercely on Dean without any sign of regret or disgust visible in either his face or body language. His mouth is parted and his breathing is almost as fast as Dean’s own, his cheeks pink and his hair fucked all to hell like he’s had his fingers in it, and that makes Dean’s imagination run  _ wild _ . He imagines Castiel biting his lip and tugging at his own hair while watching him take Nick apart, while taking him apart  _ himself, _ and Dean’s cock goes from  _ half  _ to  _ all ahead full _ just like that. Dean’s eyes track Castiel watching him now, and he can almost  _ see  _ the gears turning as Castiel’s perception of him shifts and adjusts and settles into something brand new.

Dean can only imagine how he looks right now, glancing down to see his clothes and the skin of his arms covered almost completely in blood. His face is undoubtedly also blood-spattered and pink-cheeked from exertion, his hair spiked, sweaty and dark where it’s pushed back from his forehead. He licks his lips as he shifts back up to see Cas, the bloody mess all over his new partner in crime a mirror image, Cas eyes narrowing and his head tilting down as he follows the motion.

And then Cas is on him, flinging bloody arms around Dean’s neck and jumping up to wrap legs around his waist in a move that surprises Dean so much he almost doesn’t have time to catch him. He narrowly avoids sending them both crashing to the floor, gripping at Castiel’s thighs and ass, struggling to hold him up as Castiel licks into his mouth with enthusiasm. Just as quickly as he came, Cas is jumping down and pulling their mouths apart to stare that inch or so up at Dean with a kind of intensity Dean’s not sure he can fucking handle right now. Cas grabs the front of Dean’s t-shirt and drags him down to the floor on top of him, already pulling at his layers of clothes before they even hit the ground. 

Ripping his own shirt over his head before going for Dean’s, Castiel surges forward to bite at a nipple as soon as it’s free. Dean groans and fists a hand into the hair at the back of Cas’ head, yanking him off and tugging his neck back so that he can kiss him hard all over again. 

Cas’ mouth stays open when Dean pulls back, his eyes glazed and heavy with lust as he lets Dean move his head this way and that. Dean kisses him again, feels his flexing muscles tense and wriggle underneath his own body. He scoops arms around Cas’ back, sliding them up his shoulder blades as his mouth makes its way across Cas’ jaw and down to his blood-spattered neck. Copper bursts on his tongue as Castiel moans and struggles anxiously beneath him, working to shove both of their pants down as Dean sucks a bruise over the quickened beat of his pulse point. 

When they’re down to boxers, jeans tangled around their legs, Dean wastes no time in rolling his hips against Castiel’s pelvis, which apparently frustrates him to no end. He growls, legs kicking out and hands greedy as he scrabbles to make the last of their clothing disappear, humming triumphantly when he finally kicks it all free. Castiel grabs at Dean’s waist, flexes up into him and tugs him down at the same time. 

“Fuck me,” he demands around determined bites to Dean’s bottom lip, hands twining in Dean’s hair to tip his head to the side and provide access to his ear and neck. Dean moans as Cas ruts his hard cock against his stomach, slapping his ass hard when Dean doesn’t instantly comply with his instructions. “ _ Fuck me,  _ Dean,” Cas repeats, allowing Dean to move away just enough so that he can grab his cock and redirect it where he wants it. “Come  _ on. _ ” 

And Dean’s eyes are already on the verge of rolling back in his head from the amount of desire and delicious pleasure flooding his system, so who is he to argue? Castiel’s hands reach up and brace on the floor beside his head as Dean pushes in, unable to hold back a groan and a bitten off, “ _ Cas...”  _

“ _ Yess _ ,” Castiel hisses, pulling Dean in with his legs and squeezing him with his thighs,  _ just  _ like in Dean’s fantasies. He rocks and thrusts up to take him deeper, hands clawing at Dean’s shoulders, his ass and his own back arching off the floor. Cas’ legs fight to close around him, to bring him closer still, and Dean can barely fucking hold on as he pounds him as hard as he can stand without blowing his load embarrassingly early. The force of his thrusts rocks them across the floor, and pretty soon Cas’ hair is in the blood, his hand splashing in it when he throws one out to the side for purchase. A few stray drops land on the side of Cas’ pretty face and Dean’s  _ never  _ been so turned on in his entire fucking life. 

His arm muscles scream under the effort of holding them up, holding them together, and Castiel jerks himself roughly between them until he comes yelling and thrashing all over Dean’s stomach. Dean doesn’t bother to draw things out on any longer than that, quickly following him over the edge, thrusting into his ass in a way that Cas is  _ definitely  _ going to feel tomorrow. That thought flutters aimlessly through Dean’s dazed head as he pants into Castiel’s neck, and unsurprisingly, he finds that the idea pleases him to no end. 

When Dean moves away to pull out, he’s struck by the look on Castiel’s face, the smears of blood tracking across his cheek only adding to how stunning he is. The happiness and affection in his eyes, his smile, it’s all so in contrast with what they just  _ did,  _ with their gruesome surroundings, with everything  _ Dean  _ has done, what  _ Cas  _ has done to get them here. Cas’ sweet half-smile, the crinkles next to his eyes, it’s all so  _ soft,  _ and Dean suddenly has no idea how he ever thought he could walk away from this. He satisfies his regret by reminding himself that now, he doesn’t need to. Cas is fucking  _ in _ , he  _ wants  _ to be Dean’s, and they can be a team. 

Their lives can be like tonight  _ all  _ of the time. 

“What?” Castiel asks quietly, smiling turning mischievous. 

Dean blinks and swallows against the extremely unmanly lump in his throat. “It’s possible that I might love you,” he admits, and Castiel’s smile widens. 

“I wasn’t sure you could.” His tone isn’t accusing or pitying, he’s just stating a fact, and Dean marvels once again at what a miracle Castiel has turned out to be.

“You did all of this and you weren’t sure I could even…” 

But Castiel just shrugs. “I had faith,” he says, as if that makes any kind of sense. “In you,” he adds, as if realizing how ridiculous his original wording sounds. Dean works his jaw and sits back on his heels, Castiel struggling to sit up beside him. 

“Looks like I should have had more faith in you,” Dean comments, way too casual, and Castiel rests a hand on his arm.

“Let’s not do this,” he suggests gently. “You chose me, and now I’ve chosen you. It can be as simple as that.” He gets to his feet, Nick’s blood trailing dark red against tan skin as it runs down his back and over the curve of his ass. “There’s a working shower over here. It’s terrible, but it’ll get the job done. Come,” he insists, holding out a hand.

And like Dean is starting to suspect he will be doing for a very long time, he takes Castiel’s hand and follows. 

***


	6. Part 3: Magnetic Reversal

_ Epilogue: One Year Later  _

_Dean_

“Sam! Get your lazy ass out of my VIP booth and go bring up another case of Miller Lite.” Dean calls out from behind the bar, slinging the rag he’s wiping with over his shoulder. Sam rolls his eyes and reluctantly unravels himself from Ruby and the other ladies du jour draped all over him in the plushy, elevated seating next to the bar. Tucking his long legs up onto the seat so that he can stand and step over two of the girls, he makes his exit. After hopping down and leaning on the outer edge of the bar, Sam’s face makes perfectly clear what he thinks of Dean’s demand.

“Oh, so it’s  _ your  _ VIP booth, now? Thought you said we were all a team.” 

“Yea? Well, then be a team player and go get that beer,” Dean snipes back. Sam rolls his eyes again but does as requested. As he disappears down the stairs, the lights over the main stage shift and the DJ beat changes, segueing smoothly into the night’s featured dance. Dean refills a few glasses for various patrons and then leans his arms on the bar to watch as Castiel appears onstage. He’s dressed in that sparkly white angel costume again, complete with circlet and wings. It’s still Dean’s favorite after all this time, call him sentimental, and he watches with undisguised appreciation as most of it comes off. Castiel’s oiled muscles flex as he wraps himself around the pole, flipping and turning so smoothly it’s as if he’s meant to be up there. And Dean might think that so, if he didn’t have the firsthand experience to know better, to know where Castiel  _ really  _ belongs. 

As his eyes catch Sam’s return in his peripheral vision, he adjusts himself in his jeans but doesn’t bother to so much as look away from the show. Sam drops the case from his shoulder down to Dean’s feet with a  _ thud,  _ and if he weren’t preoccupied, he’d school him for being so careless with the product. Not that  _ beer  _ is what brings in the money around here, not these days. Between Cas and the other strippers and Sam taking up residence as the house dealer, they’re flush without even trying. And the club itself provides a hell of a way to launder Sam’s earnings into legitimate cash flow. The Winchesters have never been so goddamn stable in their entire twisted lives.

“Dean,” Sam whines in exasperation, and Dean drags his gaze away from Cas for long enough to realize that it’s probably not the first time Sam’s said his name. 

“Sorry,” he replies tonelessly, clearly not sorry at all as he gestures towards the stage. “I’m kinda busy here.” 

Sam sighs. “You can watch Cas get naked anytime. Dean, what are you  _ thinking?  _ You can’t keep  _ that  _ in the basement.” 

Dean shoots him a sideways look. “‘Fraid I don’t know what you’re referring to, Sammy,” he says with a shrug. Sam’s brow furrows and he pulls out his phone as his gaze darts between Dean and Cas, who’s currently grinding his pelvis in some lucky dude’s face. Dean chokes back a little growl and returns to wiping ( _ scrubbing) _ the bar. It’s not the most effective way of channeling his frustrations, but hell. In the name of normalcy, or whatever.

“Oh,” Sam says suddenly. 

“Oh?” Dean echoes, not bothering to look up.

“Did you realize it’s your anniversary?” That gets Dean’s attention, and he immediately stops wiping, glancing up with panic written all over his face. “I’ll take that as a no,” Sam says, shaking his head. “No worries, I got you covered. I’ll send Ruby home to set up some candles and shit, rose petals, all that girly stuff they like.” 

Dean grunts, despite greatly appreciating the gesture. “Cas ain’t no girl,” he replies gruffly. “Ruby fucks this up, I’m gonna get my ass kicked.” 

“I just meant that Ruby knows what Cas likes. Romantic stuff you and I would never think to do.” Dean lifts his dishrag in half-resignation, half-appreciation. 

“Sure. Great. Thanks, Sammy.” He takes a customer’s order and fills it before turning back as Sam’s walking away. “Hey--how did you know it was my anniversary?” 

Sam just grins and shakes his head. “That’s for me to know… and Cas to tell you later,” he says with a wink. Dean watches in suspicion as Sam hops over the two girls on the outer edge of the curved booth and ducks his head down to whisper to Ruby as he slips back into his seat. A few minutes later, she exits the booth on the other side and blows Dean a sarcastic kiss across the bar as she leaves.

When no one’s looking, Dean has to check his own phone for confirmation of Sam’s claim, and sure enough, there it is in bold print. Today marks one year exactly since Cas lured him to that warehouse and they’d both spilled their share of secrets to each other. 

They’ve been going strong ever since, him and Cas, not that they don’t have their fair share of arguments. Although, if Cas is to be believed, supposedly all couples go through that. Dean wouldn’t know, Cas is the first person he’s “ _ dated”  _ that didn’t end up in pieces, not that it would kill him to pretend he thinks it’s funny when Dean brings that up as a joke. 

A lot has happened over the past year, as well, outside of their relationship, the most obvious being their semi-hostile takeover of the club. It had been all too easy, all told, to put the vague plan Cas came up with into motion. Crowley had needed to die regardless, for what he did to Cas, and Dean was all about killing two birds with one stone, pun intended. It was as simple as Castiel smuggling in supplies slowly over a week’s time, and then Dean sneaking in to hide in the locker room until after all the strippers and waitstaff had gone home, leaving Crowley to count his money like Scrooge McDuck in the back office. 

In the end, it was Crowley’s greed that had done him in. Kicking a few handsy but well-paying assholes to the curb, not taking such a high cut from his performers, and putting the daily till in a deposit pouch before going right to the bank probably would have saved his life. And, you know, not letting his dancers get raped in the back alley, that would have gone a long way, too. 

When he was sure that the club was empty and Crowley was occupied, Dean had opened the side door and let Cas back in. Then together, they’d ambushed Crowley in his office, tying him to his own excessively expensive rolling chair and torturing him in various delicious ways that  _ still  _ make Dean’s blood sing to think about. They’d kept that up until he caved to every single one of their demands. 

Which explains how Castiel walked out of there with a note written and signed by Crowley’s own hand, fake notarized and tucked securely inside an enveloped addressed to Castiel himself. The note described how Crowley “needed a break,” and would be “disappearing for the foreseeable future,” back to England for “mental health reasons”. The letter used phrases such as, “silent partner,” and the orderly bank statements, payroll, and vendor information left neatly on Crowley’s desk ensured that no one involved in the legal process to transfer the bar over to Castiel so much as blinked. Crowley’s body was taken out limb by limb with the following Tuesday’s dumpster removal from Heaven & Hell.

Nabbing the bar out from under Crowley turned out to be a sound decision for more than one reason, in the long run. A base of operations and built-in money laundering for Sam, an all-around win for the strippers, since Dean and Cas were  _ much  _ better bosses than Crowley, and an opportunity for something better than a life on the run for all of them. Their little team also discovered that Castiel actually had quite the head for numbers, and so aside from continuing to dance when he feels like it, now he balances the books, does the ordering, and pays their bills. Under penalty of death, Dean will never, ever admit how hot he finds all that.

And as for him, Dean does a mix of bouncing and bartending, though his toughest gig is still playing sweet, normal, devoted boyfriend when Cas’ brother Gabriel comes around. He tries genuinely to get to know the guy, but the short fucker grates on his last nerve. Even now, Dean has to clench his teeth around the suggestion that he feed Gabriel through a shredder at  _ least  _ twice a week. The thing is, it’s not that he doesn’t  _ like  _ Gabriel, it’s that Gabriel still poses a risk, and Dean’s got a lot more to lose these days. See, Dean  _ knows  _ people, and he’s acutely aware that Gabriel suspects he’s more than he appears. It’s a roll of the dice letting him walk around under his own free will, but as long he doesn’t have any real  _ proof,  _ and as long as Dean can keep his nose clean (at least as far as Gabriel can see), he supposes he can let the guy live. 

Anything for Castiel. After all, Dean still owes him. 

His  _ favorite  _ thing about the club, though, is that it provides a steady flow of deadbeats and drifters who no one misses when they disappear. And if his cravings aren’t able to be satiated locally due to volume or potential police suspicion, he and Cas take his Baby and go out on the road, leaving the club in Sam and Ruby’s more or less capable hands while they follow wherever the wind blows them. 

A hand on Dean’s shoulder startles him back to reality, back to the present day where he’s standing behind the bar in the club. He’s completely zoned out and staring at the long-darkened screen of his phone. The hand belongs to Castiel, of course, still bare-chested and in booty shorts with those ridiculous angel wings on, pretty circle of metal sitting delicately on top of his head. Corny as it sounds, all Dean can think is that Cas is all the angel he could ever need or want. His eyes rove over Cas’ form in blatant appreciation, and he cracks a grin at the curious look on his angel’s face.

“Hey, sunshine,” he quips, and a half-smile creeps over Cas’ lips. 

“Hello, Dean,” he replies. “Can you hand the bar off? I have something for you.” 

Dean nods easily and signals to the other bartender, a retired stripper who had been dying to get off the floor for years now but couldn’t find other employment. Crowley had seemed to enjoy torturing her, but that kind of pain and misery has never been Dean’s bag. She shoots him a thumbs-up as he motions for her to cover his side. Taking Castiel’s hand in his own, Dean lets himself be led. Sam flashes him a smile and a wave as they pass the VIP booth, and Dean narrows his eyes at the idea that Sam’s apparently sharing secrets again with Castiel. Sure, their little team-up got him and Cas back together, but Dean would much prefer the two of them leave things at that. He’s still a little worried that Sam is going to try and fuck Cas one of these days, if he’s being honest. 

Castiel opens the basement door and motions Dean through, closing and locking it behind them. In the dimly lit stairwell, the bass line of the music from the main floor still pulses steadily, and Cas stands way too close. Dean’s  _ just  _ about to lean in and get something started, maybe pull those booty shorts down and fuck Cas right here on the stairs, when Castiel slips away, his hand sliding down Dean’s arm to twine their fingers together and drag him along behind. 

At the bottom of the stairs, he flips a light switch and the basement comes into view. To Dean’s surprise and delight, there’s a gagged man tied to one of the support poles off to the side, a big red bow perched jauntily atop his head.

“I got you a present,” Castiel says softly. “Happy anniversary. This man propositioned me for sex last night, and when I declined, threatened to do something very unpleasant to my asshole with a rusty knife.” 

Dean runs a hand through his hair and can’t even begin to bite back his grin. He turns to Castiel and grabs his face with both hands, pulling him in for a firm kiss. “Gotta warn you, Cas,” he says breathlessly as he draws back. “My present can’t compete with this.” 

Castiel tips his head to the side and arches an eyebrow. “Are you telling me that you did something besides send Ruby home to spread rose petals on our bed and light a few candles?” 

“And music,” Dean replies defensively. 

Smiling and bopping Dean on the nose, Castiel’s the one to lean in again to steal another kiss. “You can play tough all you want,” he says, “But we both know which one of us enjoys the sweet, romantic, vanilla sex more.” Dean flushes and averts his eyes, and by the time he looks back, Castiel’s holding out a wicked-looking knife in offering. When Dean reaches out to take it, though, Cas pulls it away at the last second.

“It’s your choice, Dean,” Castiel continues casually, fingering the very tip of the knife in a way that makes Dean feel hot all over. “If you’d like to fuck right here on the floor before you play, that’s fine with me. I know how you enjoy an audience.” Dean swallows thickly. “Or, you can take apart your gift and then I’ll take you home and we’ll go nice and slow, really draw it out.” He looks up at Dean from underneath his thick lashes, and Dean can’t believe he’s being suckered into admitting this. Well, hell, it’s not as if anyone in the room is going to tell on him. 

“Take me home, Cas,” he says with a grin. “Take me all night long.” Castiel’s teeth drag over his bottom lip as he hands over the knife, polished wooden handle side out because, you know,  _ safety first.  _ Dean accepts it and turns to the trembling man trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey across the room. 

“But first thing’s first… I wanna play with my present.”

_The End_  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank y'all for reading, I hope you all enjoyed and aren't too scarred!! Lol. Depending on reception, there may be a timestamp from Sam's POV, because I find this Sam highly amusing. That would also include Castiel sort of "putting the pieces together" and more detail on Zachariah, which, I feel he deserves, tbh. So lmk if that's something you'd be interested in. :)


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